IN   MEMORSAM 
BERNARD   MOSES 


Hi 


KING  MAMMON 


AND  THE 


HEIR  APPARENT 


BY 

GEORGE  A.  RICHARDSON 


'«  Ye  cannot  serve   God  and  Mammon 


BOSTON 

ARENA  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

COPLEY  SQUARE 

1896 


COPYRIGHTED,  1896, 

BY 
GEORGE  A.  RICHARDSON. 


All  Rights  Reserved. 
BERNARD  MOSES 


ARENA  PRESS. 


TO  the  Spirit  of  Moral  Progress,  dormant  in  the  heart  of  the  ex- 
treme conservative,  fiercely  energetic  in  the  heart  of  the  earnest 
reformer,  but  dominant,  actively  or  passively,  in  the  life  of  every  human 
being;  a  Guiding  Spirit  which  has  transformed  man's  brutal  condition 
of  the  past  into  the  better  condition  of  the  present ;  which  now  compels 
the  highest  type  of  this  changing  creature,  in  subservience  to  the  inward 
monitor,  to  treat  his  dogs  and  horses  more  kindly  and  justly  than  he 
once  treated  his  sons  and  brothers ;  and  which,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will 
transform  the  same  being  by  future  modifications  into  a  creature  still 
more  closely  approaching  that  ideal  of  mental  power  and  moral  perfec- 
tion which  the  developing  comprehension  of  humanity  in  every  age  and 
country  deifies,  this  book  is  reverently  dedicated. 


887319 


•  o  ..    • 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  King  Mammon  and  His  Realm 9 

II.  The  King's  Granaries 20 

III.  Some  Rights  and  Wrongs 36 

IV.  Devil  take  the  Hindmost 47 

V.  The  Worship  of  Our  Ancestors 64 

VI.  The  Roots  of  the  Upas  Tree 82 

VII.  Mental  and  Moral  Treadmills 95 

VIII.  Dead  Men's  Tyranny 109 

IX.  Earth  from  a  Distance 119 

X.  Six  Feet  of  Earth  for  a  Grave 136 

XI.  The  Supremacy  of  Egotism 156 

XII.  From  Poverty  to  Wealth 180 

XIII.  King  Mammon's  Nightmare 228 

XIV.  Enchanted  Wealth 296 

XV.  The  Land  of  Noahme 323 

XVI.  The  Link  Between  Two  Generations 340 

XVII.  Looking  on  Both  Sides -t  385 

XVIII.  The  Right  to  Earn  a  Living 406 

XIX.  The  Duty  of  an  American  Citizen 429 

Appendix 449 


KING    MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  I. 

KING    MAMMON    AND    HIS    REALM. 

"  For  'all  human  things  do  reqiiire  to  have  an  Ideal  in  them  ;  to  have 
some  Sojil  in  them,  as  we  said,  were  it  only  to  keep  the  Body  unputrefied. 
And  wonderful  it  is  to  see  how  the  Ideal  or  Soul,  place  it  in  what  ugliest 
Body  yoii  may,  will  irradiate  said  Body  with  its  own  nobleness  ;  will  grad- 
ually, incessantly,  mould,  modify,  new-form  or  reform  said  ugliest  Body 
and  make  it  at  last  beautiful,  and  to  a  certain  degree  divine  !  Oh,  if  you 
could  dethrone  that  Brute-god  Mammon,  and  put  a  Spirit-God  in  his  place! 
One  way  or  other,  he  must  and  will  have  to  be  dethroned.'1'' 

— THOMAS  CARLYLE. 

IN  the  closing  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  reck- 
oned from  the  earth-visit  of  a  forgotten  Christ,  Mammon 
is  King  of  the  civilized  world.  You,  my  reader,  need  no 
presentation  to  the  King.  You  have  faithfully  served 
him  ;  so  have  I.  Neither  of  us  two  may  have  achieved 
high  rank  in  the  King's  service  ;  possibly  neither  has  bent 
the  knee  in  that  servile  adulation  which  is  the  surest  means 
of  securing  the  royal  favor  :  yet  we  have  both  honored 
Mammon.  Out  of  that  continued  reverence  will  come 
servility,  and  out  of  servility  degradation.  Let  me  whis- 
per to  you  before  it  is  too  late  :  King  Mammon  is  a 
tyrant  / 

Tyranny  in  this  free  land  of  America,  did  you  say? 
Tyranny  under  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  our 

9 


10  KING  MAMMON. 

venerated  Constitution,  our  starry  flag,  our  privileges  of 
the  ballot,  of  free  speech,  of  assemblage  ?  These  are 
forms,  Reader, — baubles,  trinkets,  playthings,  with  which 
infantile  humanity  has  been  amused  under  other  names 
since  men  left  records  of  their  life-work.  There  is  no 
freedom,  except  the  freedom  of  the  human  heart  and 
mind  from  the  service  of  Mammon  ;  for  wealth  is  naught 
but  power,  and  power  unlimited  has  ever  been  the  tyrant's 
conception  of  heaven  for  him  on  earth.  When  all  men, 
Reader,  seek  to  own  and  dominate  this  little  fragment 
of  universe  named  earth,  think  you  that  freedom  can  exist 
among  them?  Mammon  laughs  at  such  conception  of 
his  power. 

Mammon  is  a  tyrant,  Reader ;  so  are  you  and  I  tyrants. 
For  we  are  loyal  subjects  of  the  King  ;  and  found  you 
ever  a  courtier  under  kingly  tyranny  who  was  not  as 
great  a  tyrant  when  he  possessed  the  power  ?  In  Mam- 
mon's realm,  some  are  courtiers  and  many  serfs,  \tyou 
be  one  of  Mammon's  princes,  consider  not  that  by  your 
rank  you  may  escape  his  tyranny.  Do  not  his  favored 
courtiers  perish  every  day  in  faithful  allegiance  to  their 
lord  ?  Yet  what  real  profit  and  reward  have  these  hon- 
ored subjects  secured  at  last  from  their  King  ?  They  have 
toiled  in  his  service  during  a  feverish  existence,  slavishly 
obedient  to  his  commands ;  they  have  collected  with  in- 
finite trouble  into  great  storehouses  many  scraps  of  earth 
that  Mammon  prizes  ;  they  have  guarded  these  stores  by 
day  and  dreamed  of  them  by  night  in  servile  devotion  ; 
they  have  worn  out  body  and  brain  and  life  in  protecting 
the  treasures  :  yet  what  reward  did  they  receive  at  the 
end  of  this  life  service  ?  Did  they  get  more  for  their  faith- 
ful labor  than  the  paltry  food  and  clothing  that  conferred  a 
beggar's  comfort  upon  their  slavish  existence?  Having 
enslaved  other  men  by  the  commands  of  the  tyrant,  were 
they  not  themselves  enslaved  by  his  power  ?  Think  you 


KING  MAMMON.  II 

that  any  man    escapes  tyranny  in   the  service  of  Mam- 
mon ? 

And,  Reader,  if  you  be  a  serf  in  this  realm  of  Mammon, 
do  not  flatter  your  foolish  self  with  the  idea  that  tyranny 
dwells  only  in  the  hearts  of  kings  and  courtiers.  Do  not 
think  for  a  moment  that  lack  of  power  means  the  absence 
of  tyranny.  Do  not  cheat  yourself  with  the  belief  that 
because  Mammon  has  not  honored  you,  a  nobler  spirit 
dwells  in  your  own  breast  than  those  which  animate 
other  tyrants  raised  above  you.  Do  not  suppose  that 
hating  tyrants  is  the  same  as  hating  tyranny.  One  tyrant, 
like  you  and  me,  may  hate  another  and  both  remain  slaves 
to  their  impulses  ;  but  only  those  human  beings  who  are 
emancipated  by  their  love  of  freedom  among  other  men 
can  themselves  be  free.  Do  not  believe  that  mere 
poverty  drives  out  tyranny  from  the  human  heart.  The 
beggar  is  a  despot  in  beggarly  possessions. 

Whether,  then,  you  be  serf  or  courtier,  Reader, — whether 
your  life-station  under  Mammon's  sway  gives  you  power 
over  other  men,'  or  whether  you  feel  no  power  in  your 
ownlbands,  but  only  hatred  of  some  being  possessing 
power  that  dominates  your  own  life-work — remember  that 
tyranny  is  a  thing  which  comes  out  of  your  own  heart 
and  mind.  The  King  whom  you  honor  and  serve  is  only 
the  embodiment  of  your  own  instincts.  The  tyranny  of 
Mammonism  is  your  own  inner  life,  given  power  and 
turned  against  you.  The  despotism  of  Mammon  is  the 
despotism  of  his  subjects,  emanating  a  little  here,  a  little 
there,  and  aggregating  finally  into  a  power  that  is  crush- 
ing its  creator  as  petty  tyrants  have  been  crushed  by 
aggregated  tyranny  since  man  wrote  history.  Would 
you  dethrone  this  tyrant?  Then  first  tear  out  his  image 
from  your  own  heart.  Destroy  the  despot's  power  there, 
and  all  will  be  well ;  but  think  not  that  Mammon's  forms 
of  government  can  be  improved  by  other  Mammonism. 


12  KING  MAMMON. 

Havejyou,  O  Reader,  not  helped  to  build  for  this  tyrant 
the  stately  structures  described  in  this  secret  bulletin  from 
his  court  ? 

Stealthily  and  persistently  has  the  power  of  the  King 
been  extended,  and  now  in  the  heart  of  every  capital  city 
of  the  world,  where  the  golden  cross  of  Christ  is  reared  in 
shameless  mockery  of  His  humble  teachings,  a  palace  has 
been  built  for  Mammon's  occupancy.  In  material  and 
decorative  effect,  the  palaces  of  the  King  are  various  ;  but 
in  their  ground  plans  and  general  development,  these 
stately  edifices  are  identical.  The  structures  are  of  vary- 
ing extent,  but  the  foundations  always  follow  the  lines 
of  a  Greek  cross  with  arms  extended  to  the  four  points  of 
the  compass.  Every  wing  of  the  palace  is  entered  through 
a  great  archway,  and  the  interior  comprises  a  vast  apart- 
ment in  each  of  the  four  arms,  and  a  fifth  in  the  center, 
subdivided  into  smaller  sections  and  containing  at  the 
center  the  king's  throne.  Inscribed  above  the  arched 
outer  entrances  to  these  apartments  of  Mammon's  castles 
appear  strange  legends,  sometimes  in  one  language, 
sometimes  in  another,  for  they  are  the  foundation  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  King  claims  a  divine  right  to  rule, 
and  must  be  understood  by  all  from  whom  he  would  have 
reverence. 

Over  the  southern  division,  which  is  a  temple  of 
worship,  ornamented  with  high  pointed  arches,  and 
illuminated  by  a  softened  light  from  the  narrow,  stained 
windows,  appear  bold  letters  curving  above  the  emblem 
of  the  cross  and  forming  the  text :  The  poor  ye  have  al- 
ways with  you.  Passing  beneath  the  archway  the  devotee 
in  Mammon's  temple  finds  himself  in  a  church  massive  in 
its  architecture,  rich  in  its  ornamentation,  magnificent  in 
the  salary  of  its  pastor,  lucrative  in  the  rent  of  its  pews, 
highly  observant  of  social  rank  and  decorum,  forgetful  of 
the  teachings  of  genuine  Christianity,  and  false  in  its  inter- 
pretation of  life  duties  and  eternal  justice.  All  sorts  of 
doctrine  within  the  limits  of  the  Christian  faith  are  set 
forth  in  this  temple  of  worship,  for  Mammon  is  tolerant 
of  all  religions  that  conflict  not  with  the  divinity  of  riches. 
All  minor  heresies  he  will  excuse,  provided  that  prayers 
be  regularly  offered  for  his  continued  power  and  glory, 


KING   MAMMON.  13 

and  sermons  be  frequently  preached  from  the  text  above 
the  outer  archway. 

The  eastern  wing  of  the  palace  is  a  hall  of  legislation, 
filled  with  a  sample  group  of  the  millions  outside  the 
King's  castle,  who  send  delegates  here  to  confer  with  him 
and  ascertain  his  pleasure.  They  are  termed  the  law- 
makers of  that  portion  of  the  King's  domain  in  which  the 
castle  is  located,  and  they  are  manufacturing  laws  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  under  the  super- 
vision and  careful  direction  of  the  King,  who  spends 
much  of  his  time  in  this  part  of  the  palace,  and  fills  his 
place  with  a  trusty  courtier  when  he  is  compelled  to  be 
away.  He  has  more  faith  in  legislators,  than  in  scientists 
or  priests,  though  he  welcomes  all  kinds  of  subserviency. 
Inscribed  above  the  archway  to  this  hall  are  the  words, 
Laissez  faire.  Many  of  the  legislators  are  not  versed  in 
languages  or  history,  and  their  conception  of  the  exact 
meaning  attached  to  this  phrase  by  King  Mammon  is  not 
very  clear,  but  they  interpret  it  to  mean  that  they  shall  let 
him  alone  and,  in  dutiful  accordance  with  this  theory, 
they  proceed  to  act  in  obedience  to  his  edicts,  without 
interference  with  his  plans.  The  King  is  well  satisfied 
with  his  body  of  lawmakers,  and  nearly  every  part  of 
their  work  bears  the  golden  seal  of  his  approval. 

The  northern  hall  of  the  castle  is  noisy  with  the  hum 
of  machinery  and  alive  with  an  army  of  busy  workers. 
It  is  the  department  whence  the  King  issues  his  bulletins 
to  the  people.  Like  the  creeds  of  the  church,  there  are 
issued  here  a  thousand  different  names  and  styles  of  pub- 
lication, often  assailing  one  another  after  the  saintly  fashion 
of  the  priesthood,  but  all  giving  due  honor  to  King  Mammon 
and  all  publishing  in  bold  letters  at  the  head  of  their  col- 
umns, the  inscription  which  Mammon  has  selected  for  the 
archway  to  this  hall,  and  which  apparently  reads  : — The 
freedom  of  the  press  must  and  shall  be  maintained.  En- 
twined with  the  letters  of  this  inscription,  however,  is  a 
curious  border  of  characters  like  the  picture-writing  of  the 
ancient  Egyptians,  which  has  a  meaning  that  is  not  sus- 
pected by  the  common  people.  One  or  two  archaeologists, 
good  for  nothing  except  such  worthless  employment,  have 
deciphered  the  characters,  and  they  assert  that  the  real 
meaning  of  the  entire  inscription  is  :  "The  freedom  of 
the  press  (to  publish  what  it  is  paid  for)  must  and  shall 


14  KING   MAMMON. 

be  preserved.  This  department  is  also  frequently  favored 
by  the  King's  visits,  for  its  facilities  enable  him  to  com- 
municate frequently  with  many  subjects  who  do  not  often 
appear  at  the  palace.  When  he  has  no  special  edicts  to 
make  known  through  the  agency  of  this  department,  he 
directs  that  articles  shall  be  prepared  reciting  the  growth 
of  liberty  and  equality,  the  comfort  and  progress  of  the 
people  compared  with  their  former  condition,  the  perfec- 
tion of  existing  institutions  and  the  national  glory  that  is 
before  the  people.  Strict  orders  are  issued  by  the  King 
that  nothing  is  to  be  published  of  his  own  power  and 
glory,  but  that  the  country  and  the  people  are  to  receive 
much  consideration  from  the  writers.  King  Mammon 
does  not  encourage  biographers.  In  the  fourth  hall  of 
the  castle,  on  the  western  side,  seats  are  arranged  to 
accommodate  a  vast  number  of  people,  for  it  is  a  lecture 
room  where  science,  politics,  and  art  receive  the  attention, 
of  eloquent  and  talented  speakers  in  the  King's  behalf. 
There  is  a  tripartite  inscription  above  this  arched  entrance, 
each  portion  appropriate  to  one  of  the  three  topics 
of  discussion  to  which  the  hall  is  devoted.  First  appears 
the  scientist,  in  The  survival  of  the  fittest ;  then  comes  the 
politician  with,  Our  country  right  or  wrong ;  and  finally 
the  artist,  declaring  that,  Wealth  and  art  are  inseparable. 
The  King's  scientist  teaches  that  the  laws  of  nature  and 
not  the  laws  of  man  control  all  social  conditions  and  social 
progress  ;  that  man  is  but  a  bubble  on  the  sea  of  life, 
tossed  about  by  the  great  evolutionary  forces  surround- 
ing him.  If  he  survives  the  destruction  that  everywhere 
threatens  him,  his  survival  is  the  "survival  of  the  fittest  "  ; 
if  he  goes  down  under  adversity  and  complains  that  laws 
might  be  made  better  and  men  happier,  he  is  assured 
that  nature  and  not  man  is  responsible  for  his  trouble. 
The  politician  expands  his  chest  with  mock  patriotism, 
wraps  the  flag  of  his  country  metaphorically  around  him — 
any  flag  is  satisfactory  to  King  Mammon — and  proceeds 
to  expatiate  upon  its  glorious  institutions,  the  bravery 
and  intelligence  of  its  men,  the  beauty  and  virtue  of  its 
women,  the  freedom  and  equality  of  its  institutions,  and 
the  achievements  and  triumphs  of  the  past.  These  dis- 
courses are  very  pleasing  to  the  King,  and  very  soothing 
to  his  subjects.  The  art  lecturer  has  much  to  say  of  the 
whichness  of  the  what,  of  optimistic  and  pessimistic 


KING   MAMMON.  15 

thought  expressed  in  poetry  and  sculpture,  in  architecture 
and  painting- ;  of  the  ideals  of  life,  the  aspirations  of  the 
soul,  of  truth  to  nature  and  fidelity  to  art.  Neither  the 
King  nor  the  people  comprehend  the  exact  meaning  of 
these  artistic  ideas,  but  Mammon  encourages  art  and 
encourages  lectures  to  prove  to  the  people  that  all  is  for 
the  best ;  that  life  is  still  a  poem,  although  the  metre  may 
be  at  times  irregular  ;  and  that  when  our  minds  develop  to  a 
conception  of  the  pure  and  the  beautiful  things  that  exist 
on  every  side  of  us,  if  we  could  only  see  them,  we  shall 
then  achieve  an  ethereal  happiness  on  earth  inferior  only 
to  the  joys  of  heaven.  It  is  sometimes  comforting  to 
believe  in  things  that  we  do  not  understand. 

The  space  at  the  intersection  of  the  arms  of  the  cross, 
beneath  the  dome  of  the  building,  is  occupied  by  what 
the  people  term  courts  of  justice.  These  surround  the 
throne  of  the  King,  and  it  materially  expedites  his  govern- 
mental affairs  to  have  the  courts  so  located,  for  any 
failure  in  this  branch  of  government  to  carry  out  his  plans, 
would  be  a  serious  obstacle  to  their  final  success.  In 
and  about  the  courts,  large  numbers  of  talented  young 
men  are  trained  under  the  watchful  eyes  of  the  King's 
courtiers  in  the  proper  interpretation  and  application  of 
the  edicts  that  have  been  promulgated  by  the  King  and 
formulated  under  his  direction  by  the  lawmakers.  These 
apprentices  in  the  art  of  making  laws,  after  a  proper  ser- 
vice in  the  courts,  and  after  there  giving  some  proof  that 
they  comprehend  the  principles  upon  which  the  King's 
government  is  based,  are  usually  transferred  to  the  east- 
ern hall  and  delegated  to  lead  in  the  work  of  framing  new 
edicts  for  the  guidance  of  the  people.  When  they  have 
shown  that  in  both  capacities  they  are  faithful  to  the  in- 
terests of  Mammon,  they  are  returned  to  the  central  court 
and  placed  upon  the  judicial  bench  for  life. 

The  throne  of  Mammon  rises  high  in  the  center  of  this 
inner  hall.  At  a  little  distance  it  seems  built  solidly  of 
masonry  and  capable  of  withstanding  the  ravages  of  time, 
to  an  infinite  degree  ;  but  a  closer  investigation  that  has 
been  made  by  a  few  curious  observers,  undismayed  by 
the  King's  presence,  proves  that  the  material  of  which  it 
is  composed  is  nothing  but  books  bound  in  sheepskin. 
Those  at  the  base  of  the  throne  contain  all  the  ancient 
edicts  of  the  King's  ancestors,  and  at  the  top  some  bright 


l6  KING   MAMMON. 

new  volumes  fresh  from  the  King's  lawmakers  record  his 
own  decrees.  The  books  are  cunningly  laid  and  bound 
like  bricks  into  a  wall,  and  the  throne  is  as  strong  and 
durable  as  it  can  be  made  of  such  perishable  material  ; 
but  there  is  already  a  sign  of  decay  at  the  bottom,  and  a 
mouldy  smell  now  and  then  attracts  the  attention  of  those 
who  are  quick  to  note  approaching  decomposition.  Every 
book  that  has  gone  into  the  structure  of  the  King's  throne 
has  been  indelibly  stamped  on  its  outer  surface  with  the 
words,  Private  rights  are  a  perpetuity,  the  regular  repeti- 
tion of  these  words  giving  the  work  the  appearance  of  or- 
namentation. At  the  back  of  the  throne,  above  the  King's 
head,  the  same  inscription  is  embroidered  in  large  letters 
with  red  tape,  and  is  surmounted  by  the  King's  arms, 
wrought  in  sealing  wax,  and  representing  a  hand  grasp- 
ing a  model  of  the  earth,  under  which  the  word  Forever  is 
inscribed.  The  King's  crown  is  a  band  of  parchment, 
soiled  with  the  lapse  of  time,  but  studded  with  priceless 
jewels  that  are  now  almost  separated  from  the  frail  ma- 
terial which  holds  them  in  place.  Across  the  front  are 
wrought  in  diamonds  the  two  words  :  Esto  perpetua. 

Thus  according  to  this  secret  information,  King  Mam- 
mon's court  is  established,"  and  the  courtiers  who  swarm 
within  its  walls  vociferously  deny  that  he  is  a  tyrant. 
They  have  not  felt  his  displeasure.  They  have  never 
suffered  from  his  decrees.  None  of  the  terrors  and  tor- 
ments of  his  reign  have  hitherto  fallen  upon  their  exist- 
ence. And  so  are  these  courtiers  satisfied  with  the  King's 
reign  and  loudly  praise  his  name.  My  lord  of  England, 
sailing  idly  in  his  yacht  through  Sicilian  waters  or  dally- 
ing with  the  fish  and  game  on  his  British  estates,  or  per- 
haps inspecting  his  newly-acquired  and  extensive  tracts 
of  land  in  far  away  America,  does  not  believe  that  Mam- 
mom  is  a  despot.  Neither  does  his  wealthy  and  honored 
French  neighbor,  with  whom  he  used  to  quarrel ;  for  both 
were  born  princes  of  the  realm  of  Mammon,  and  are  still 
high  in  favor.  Neither  do  the  young  American  cousins 
of  these  nobles — the  Princes  of  Real  Estate,  the  Dukes  of 


KING   MAMMON.  I/ 

Transportation,  the  Earls  of  Manufacture,  the  Barons  of 
the  Mines,  and  the  Knights  of  Commerce — find  aught  to 
denounce  in  the  decrees  of  Mammon.  The  courtier  is 
ever  subservient  to  the  ruler  while  his  favor  is  retained. 

The  King  can  rely  upon  the  faithful  allegiance  of  his 
courtiers  ;  but  in  recent  years,  among  the  lowly  subjects 
of  his  realm,  who  have  seldom  appeared  at  court,  and 
who  have  never  felt  the  delusive  happiness  of  his  favor, 
there  have  arisen  portentous  mutterings  of  discontent, 
and  the  head  of  Mammon  has  lain  uneasy,  like  other  heads 
that  wear  the  crown.  He  remembers  that  among  the 
strange  old  traditions  of  his  family  there  is  narrated  a  tale 
of  an  ancestor  whose  throne  in  ancient  Rome  was  beaten 
down  and  destroyed,  and  the  records  of  whose  reign  were 
almost  obliterated  by  a  sea  of  fire  and  blood  that  swept 
over  his  dominions.  Although  but  little  given  to  studying 
the  stale  and  worthless  legends  of  the  past,  the  King's 
courtiers  also  remind  him  that  once  again  the  throne  of 
his  ancestors  was  destroyed  after  it  was  reestablished, 
and  the  fierce  Gallic  blood  effaced  new  records  of  kingly 
tyranny  by  the  destructive  methods  of  Robespierre  and 
Danton.  These  tales  of  a  past  which  has  been  little  re- 
garded for  many  years,  and  which  is  now  almost  for- 
gotten by  many  who  surround  the  court  of  Mammon,  are 
whispered  nervously  by  a  few,  and,  like  the  story  of  the 
demons  to  the  mind  of  childhood,  the  tales  of  Rome  and 
France  create  a  fear  in  the  hearts  of  Mammon's  courtiers, 
and  they  dread  the  threatened  storm. 

The  plebeian  subjects  of  King  Mammon  are  in  habits 
and  appearance  a  motley  throng.  Diverse  in  language, 
in  religion,  in  learning  and  intellect,  in  manners  and 
customs,  they  are  alike  in  the  one  thing  only,  that  all 
must  pay  a  tribute  to  the  King  and  his  court. 

The  labor  and  the  lot  of  Mammon's  serfs  are  various. 
Some  produce  with  hand  and  some  with  brain  ;  some  toil 


1 8  KING   MAMMON. 

faithfully  and  diligently  at  the  task  allotted  to  their  lives, 
hoping  some  day  to  become  courtiers  ;  while  others,  in- 
different alike  to  the  praise  and  blame  of  Mammon,  refuse 
to  do  his  will  except  under  severe  compulsion,  but  still 
the  surplus  production  of  all — the  idle  and  the  industrious, 
the  vicious  and  the  moral,  the  stupid  and  the  intelligent 
— is,  by  a  series  of  gradual  transformations,  eventually 
dumped  together  into  the  storehouses  which  the  King  has 
established  and  placed  in  charge  of  his  favorites,  the  Lords 
of  the  Realm — the  wealth-peerage  of  the  world.  Under 
some  conditions  and  in  certain  parts  of  Mammon's  do- 
minions, where  his  power. has  not  yet  become  fully 
established,  a  portion  of  the  serfs  may,  by  prudent  self- 
denial  and  a  proper  subserviency  to  the  King,  approach 
the  dignity  of  courtiers  ;  and  these  see  before  them,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  power  and  honor  that  will  be  theirs  if  they 
can  enter  Mammon's  court  and  secure  the  knightly  dis- 
tinction. On  the  other  hand,  by  contrasting  their  own 
condition  with  that  of  other  subjects  who  have  not  found 
favor  with  the  King,  and  over  whom  his  sway  has  become 
absolute,  they  realize  the  depths  of  tyranny  into  which 
they  may  be  plunged  should  they  be  supplanted  in  his 
court,  deprived  of  their  knightly  emblems,  and  cast  down 
to  labor  again  in  the  serfdom  from  which  they  rose,  and 
thus  be  compelled  to  resume  the  struggle  among  toiling 
millions  who  never  expect  to  see  the  court  of  Mammon, 
or  reach  the  peerage  save  by  some  unforeseen  occurrence 
or  hazardous  endeavor.  These  fortunate  serfs,  who  have 
hoped  for  knighthood  and  the  favor  of  the  King,  while 
blinding  their  eyes  to  his  tyranny  and  closing  their  ears 
to  the  complaints  of  their  unfortunate  fellow-creatures 
who  are  at  the  King's  mercy,  are  debating  among  them- 
selves concerning  the  future,  and  considering  whether 
they  shall  assist  their  discontented  fellow-subjects  in  the 
revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  Mammon's  court,  which  may 


KING   MAMMON.  19 

be  turned  against  them  if  they  permit  it  to  exist,  or  whether 
they  will  continue  to  seek  the  King's  favor  and  harden 
their  hearts  to  the  wrongs  and  the  suffering. 

Very  strangely,  the  revolt  against  Mammon  has  not 
arisen  among  those  who  suffer  most  severely  from  his 
tyranny.  There  is  a  paralysis  of  life,  and  hope,  and 
resistance  under  the  extremity  of  oppression  and  childish 
familiarity  with  wrong.  Some  recent  troubles  and  in- 
cipient rebellion  against  the  King  in  the  domains  of  his 
Dukes  of  Transportation  arose,  not  because  those  subjects 
had  yet  suffered  the  full  extent  of  Mammon's  power,  but 
because  they  see  the  conditions  to  which  others,  less  fort- 
unate, have  been  subjected ;  they  note  the  continued 
extension  of  the  King's  tyranny  ;  and  they  have  deter- 
mined to  contest  the  further  establishment  of  his  power. 
Now  and  then  other  factions  of  the  serfs  revolt ;  and  the 
Barons  of  Coal  and  Iron  have  had  their  share  of  such 
conspiracies,  although  no  general  rebellion  has  occurred 
against  the  King.  But  the  bitter  murmurs  become  louder  ; 
the  discontent  is  more  boldly  voiced  ;  the  King's  courtiers 
are  shown  but  a  scanty  reverence  ;  and  it  is  feared  that 
the  subjects  of  Mammon  contemplate  a  violent  resist- 
ance to  the  authority  by  which  they  have  hitherto  been 
controlled.  Let  us  arm  these  discontented  hosts  with 
the  weapons  of  truth  and  justice,  intelligence  and  reason, 
in  the  new  warfare  against  tyranny,  for  brute  force  alone 
never  yet  righted  a  single  wrong. 


20  KING   MAMMON. 


CHAPTER   II. 
THE    KING'S    GRANARIES. 

"  The  Burden-Sloane  wedding  to-day  represented  an  outlay  of  somewhere 
near  $1,000,000.  There  were  gTiests  by  the  train  load,  and  special  trains 
at  that.  George  Vanderbilt,  the  bride's  bachelor  uncle  ;  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
F.  IV.  Vanderbilt,  Dr.  Seward  Webb,  the  whole  Shepard  contingent,  the 
H.  McK.  Twomblys  and  William  K.  Vanderbilt  were  there.  Leaving 
the  Vanderbilt  contingent  and  taking  a  look  at  the  others,  there  were  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Orme  Wilson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Jacob  Astor,  Mr.  Moses 
Taylor,  a  young  fellow  worth  $40,000,000  who  is  expected  to  marry  into 
the  Vanderbilt  family  one  of these  days  ;  Robert  Goelet  (worth  $25,000,000), 
Ogden  Goelet,  chum  of  the  Prince  of  Wales ;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Elbridge 
Gerry,  Eugene  Higgins  ;  and  many  others. 

"  The  bride's  trousseau  represents  a  small  fortune,  or  somewhere  about 
$45,000.  The  wedding  dress  was  made  by  Worth,  or  rather  by  Jiis  sons. 
It  is  of  heavy  satin,  ivory  colored,  trimmed  with  point  lace,  thirteen  inches 
wide,  Bretonne  pattern.  The  train  is  round  and  eleven  feet  long. 

"Mrs.  Sloane,  the  bride's  mother  and  William  H.  Vanderbilfs  daughter, 
is  worth  somewhere  near  $20,000,000.  The  bride  has  two  uncles  who  have 
somewhere  near  $80,000,000  worth  of  this  world's  goods,  and  a  half-dozen 
who  have  $15,000,000  or  so.  The  parents  of  the  groom  are  both  million- 
aires, and  besides  this  his  grandmother  left  him  $1,000,000  in  his  own 
right." — San  Francisco  Bulletin,  June  6,  1895. 

WEALTH  centralization,  unjustly  controlled  or  entirely 
uncontrolled,  is  a  danger  which  now  threatens  the  govern- 
ment of  nearly  every  civilized  nation  of  the  world,  and 
which,  in  the  minds  of  some  thoughtful  observers,  even 
threatens  to  destroy  civilization  itself. 

Even  this  extreme  view  of  the  danger  embodied  in  the 
present  condition  of  society  is  not  an  absurdity,  when  we 
reflect  upon  the  evidences  of  ancient  civilization  existing 
in  the  ruins  of  the  old  world,  and  contemplate  the  bar- 
barism of  the  Middle  Ages  which  succeeded  that  early 
period  of  man's  development.  Whether  the  internal  dis- 
sensions of  a  people  can  or  cannot  destroy  the  civiliza- 
tion they  have  developed  by  years  of  progress  need  not 


KING    MAMMON.  21 

be  discussed  at  present,  for  it  is  enough  to  know  that 
governments  may  be  wrecked  and  warring  factions  sub- 
stituted for  a  peaceful,  industrial  society  when  wrongs  of 
property  instead  of  rights  of  property  are  maintained  in 
the  laws  enacted  for  or  by  the  people. 

Colossal  fortunes  have  been  accumulated  in  the  United 
States  during  the  past  fifty  years  ;  and  as  the  country 
grows  older,  the  centralized  wealth  and  the  power  that 
invariably  accompanies  its  possession,  rivals  the  central- 
ization of  the  old  world,  in  some  respects,  and  exceeds 
it  in  others.  Mammon  still  retains  Baron  Rothschild  as 
his  prime  minister,  but  the  actual  concentration  of  wealth 
into  the  large  fortunes  of  the  United  States  is  greater  than 
the  wealth  centralization  of  Europe,  although  the  old 
world  retains  the  largest  fortune.  An  official  of  the 
United  States  Census  Office  after  a  careful  compilation 
gives  the  following  statistical  result : 

"  Twenty  per  cent,  of  the  wealth  of  the  United  States 
is  owned  by  three  one-hundredths  of  one  per  cent,  of  the 
population  ;  seventy-one  per  cent,  is  owned  by  nine  per 
cent,  of  the  families,  and  twenty-nine  percent,  of  the 
wealth  is  all  that  falls  to  ninety-one  per  cent,  of  the 
population." 

Expressed  in  other  terms,  this  statement  means  that 
if  we  suppose  a  population  of  10,000  people,  having  a 
wealth  of  $10,000  and  an  average  wealth  of  one  dollar 
each,  under  the  conditions  thus  expressed,  three  citizens 
own  $2,000  and  9,997  citizens  the  remainder  of  $8,000. 
That  is,  the  wealthy,  as  thus  classified,  control  an  average 
individual  wealth  of  $666^3,  while  the  average  posses- 
sions in  the  lower  class  is  82*^  cents.  Consequently, 
according  to  the  theories  advanced  by  King  Mammon's 
lectures,  those  of  the  upper  class  have,  on  an  average, 
about  810  times  the  intelligence,  the  industry,  the  persist- 


22  KING   MAMMON. 

ence,  and  the  self-denial  that  are  possessed  in  the  same 
average  way  by  the  plebeians.  The  estimate  of  the  family 
wealth  shows  that,  under  a  similar  supposition,  900  fami- 
lies own  $7,100  and  the  others,  comprising  9,100  families, 
own  $2,900.  The  average  wealth  of  the  aristocracy  is 
about  $7.88  per  family,  and  the  average  wealth  of  the 
plebeians  is  about  32  cents;  consequently,  according  to 
the  theories  of  wealth  distribution  commonly  accepted, 
the  members  of  the  first  class  have  about  25  times  the 
amount  of  social  merit,  in  a  general  way,  that  can  be 
assigned  to  the  second  class. 

Another  statistician  estimates  that  the  average  annual 
income  of  each  of  the  richest  one  hundred  Americans  can- 
not be  less  than  $i,  200,000,  and  probably  exceeds  $i,  500,- 
ooo.  Where  such  vast  amounts  of  wealth  and  wealth- 
increase  are  embodied  in  single  fortunes  estimates  made 
upon  them  are,  like  estimates  of  the  wealth  of  society  and 
the  amount  of  coin  in  circulation,  more  or  less  uncertain 
but  still  approximately  correct,  at  least  sufficiently  so  to 
justify  thoughtful  consideration.  Estimates  and  compari- 
sons made  by  the  newspapers  of  New  York  city  indicate 
that  in  1855  there  were  twenty-eight  millionaires  in  that 
city,  while  by  1892  the  number  had  increased  to  eleven 
hundred  and  three.  A  man  possessing  a  fortune  of  one 
million  of  dollars  is  scarcely  considered  wealthy  as  fort- 
unes are  now  estimated,  and  yet  one  million  of  dollars  is 
really  a  vast  power  and  product,  and  represents  the  re- 
sult of  an  astonishing  quantity  of  labor. 

Has  the  reader  ever  considered  what  it  means  to  be  the 
possessor  of  wealth  amounting  to  $100,000,000?  Let  us 
translate  the  rows  of  ciphers  with  the  insignificant  little 
figure  and  the  dollar  sign  at  the  left  into  something  more 
intelligible.  A  laboring  man  in  any  country  with  $5,000 
worth  of  property  to  his  credit  free  of  incumbrance,  is 
comfortably  situated  as  the  world  wags  to-day,  yet  twenty 


KING   MAMMON.  23 

thousand  men — a  small  army — each  possessing  this 
amount,  have  together  no  greater  wealth  than  one  man 
with  one  hundred  millions.  Fifty  thousand  men  with 
$2,000  each  have  the  same  aggregate  amount.  If  the 
owner  of  $100,000,000  should  be  compelled  to  produce 
his  fortune  by  labor  at  the  average  rate  of  $10  in  every 
twenty-four  hours,  he  would  only  have  $365,000  at  the 
end  of  a  century,  and  he  would  have  to  live  about  27,400 
years  before  he  could  thus  accumulate  his  wealth,  al- 
though average  humanity  would  consider  $10  per  day 
very  satisfactory  as  an  income.  If  the  owner  of  such  a 
fortune  should  buy  land  with  it  at  the  average  price  of 
$20  per  acre,  he  would  then  control  a  tract  as  large  as  the 
State  of  New  Jersey.  If  he  bought  suits  of  clothes  at  $10 
each,  they  would  clothe  nearly  one-sixth  of  the  population 
of  the  United  States,  or  keep  one  man  in  clothes  at  the 
rate  of  $100  per  year  for  the  next  ten  thousand  centuries. 
If  he  bought  flour  at  $4  per  barrel  he  would  have  enough 
to  meet  the  annual  consumption  of  one-third  of  the  people 
in  the  United  States,  or  to  feed  one  man  for  25,000,000 
years.  If  the  wealth  were  transformed  into  silver 
dollars  and  stacked  in  a  single  pile  it  would  reach  out- 
ward from  the  surface  of  the  earth  more  than  175  miles — 
far  beyond  the  supposed  limits  of  the  atmosphere. 
Tipped  over  upon  the  earth,  the  stack  of  silver  would 
reach  across  the  State  of  California.  Given  two  horses,  a 
wagon  and  his  own  two  hands,  the  owner  would  require 
years  to  collect  his  silver  dollars  as  they  lay  in  line 
along  the  earth  and  to  merely  gather  them  into  a  central 
heap. 

And  yet  there  are  men  who  see  no  wrong  and  no  dan- 
ger in  the  present  methods  of  controlling  and  continuing 
such  fortunes  !  If  such  be  the  nature  and  extent  of  a  fort- 
une of  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  what  shall  we  say 
of  the  fortunes  of  two  hundred  or  two  hundred  and  fifty 


24  KING   MAMMON. 

millions  that  are  likely  to  represent  the  wealth  of  the 
largest  accumulations  of  this  century  ?  Such  power  is  not 
merely  the  absolute  control  of  a  fortune,  it  is  the  dictator- 
ship of  an  empire. 

Tabulated  results  by  competent  and  disinterested  sta- 
tisticians, writing  only  for  reference,  show  that  in  1890 
the  wealth  of  the  United  States  was  estimated  at  $66,000,- 
000,000.  Its  population  at  that  time  being  63,000,000, 
the  average  wealth  of  each  person  was  $1,047.62.  There 
are  now  at  least  1,600  persons  who  are  each  worth  $5,- 
000,000  or  more.  Careful  estimates  indicate  that  in  this 
country  there  are  not  less  than  30,000  persons  each  of 
whom  possesses  property  valued  at  more  than  $500,000, 
and  all  of  whom  possess  an  aggregate  wealth  of  $36,250,- 
000,000,  leaving  to  all  the  other  inhabitants  of  the  country 
an  aggregate  wealth  of  $26, 750,000,006.  That  is,  30,000 
people  in  the  United  States  own  considerably  more  than 
half  its  wealth  and,  on  an  average,  one  person  in  every 
two  thousand  persons  owns  more  wealth  than  all  the 
others  together. 

Figures  are  dry  ;  it  is  not  necessary  to  pursue  them  fur- 
ther to  comprehend  in  a  general  way  the  fearful  inequali- 
ties of  wealth  distribution  that  have  arisen  in  the  Republic, 
even  at  this  early  stage  of  its  progress.  The  belligerently 
conservative  reader  who  believes  firmly  in  the  perfection 
of  established  institutions,  -will  now  begin  to  inquire  : 
"Well,  what  do  you  propose  to  do  about  it?  Do  you 
expect  to  rob  these  people  of  great  wealth  and  give  it  to 
the  idle  and  vicious,  who  do  not  succeed  in  the  world  be- 
cause they  make  no  effort  ? " 

In  this  chapter  nothing  will  be  proposed  ;  but  an  effort 
will  be  made  to  indicate  that  wealth  centralization  exists 
to  a  dangerous  degree  and  that,  if  unchecked,  the  condi- 
tion will  almost  inevitably  destroy  the  present  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States.  It  may  be  shown  that  such 


KING    MAMMON.  25 

disproportionate  centralization  of  wealth  is  unjust  and  un- 
necessary, and  whatever  shall  be  proposed  will,  it  is  hoped, 
be  founded  upon  justice  and  equal  rights,  as  all  genuine 
reforms  must  be,  and  will  rob  no  man  of  one  dollar  nor 
deprive  him  of  a  single  moral  right  or  privilege  to  which 
he  is  justly  entitled. 

Let  us  proceed  with  our  inquiry  into  the  actual  distribu- 
tion of  those  comforts  that  are  generally  believed  to  make 
life  worth  living.  We  need  only  to  use  our  eyes.  On  the 
streets  of  any  large  city  we  can  see  the  magnificent  pal- 
aces of  the  rich,  each  of  which  has  cost  enough  to  give  a 
year  of  comparative  rest  and  comfort  to  a  thousand  poor 
men's  homes,  in  which  the  bread  for  the  morrow  is  earned 
by  the  toil  of  to-day.  Sometimes  the  marble  palace  is 
occupied  by  gay  revelers  "  who  toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin,"  and  yet  are  decked  in  silks  and  satins,  laces  and 
diamonds,  the  value  of  which  would  be  fortunes  to  the 
workers  crowded  closely  together  in  the  grimy  tenements 
owned  by  the  occupants  of  the  palace,  but  located  at  a 
distance  from  their  luxurious  habitation,  and  in  a  quarter 
where  the  necessities  of  a  badly  balanced  social  existence 
crowd  human  beings  together  like  sardines  in  their  little 
tin  case.  The  wines  and  the  flowers  on  a  single  table  in 
the  palace  often  cost  more  than  a  hundred  industrious  and 
frugal  laborers  are  able  to  accumulate  in  a  year's  applica- 
tion to  their  labor  service.  Sometimes  the  palace  is  closed 
and  silent,  unoccupied  and  useless  except  as  the  home  of 
a  few  servants  left  in  charge,  while  the  socially  worthless 
existence  of  its  owners  is  droned  out  at  a  summer  resort 
or  in  travel.  Such  are  the  idle  rich,  harmless,  thought- 
less, save  in  following  the  daily  round  of  folly  that  has 
become  to  them  a  life-work  ;  free  from  responsibility, 
knowing  little  of  their  fellow-creatures  or  of  human  exist- 
ence outside  the  circle  of  what  they  term  society,  and 
serving  no  useful  purpose  whatever  in  the  economy  of 


26  KING   MAMMON. 

either  man  or  nature.  Their  religion  is  the  doctrine  of 
the  "four  hundred,"  and  their  prophets  are  Ward  McAl- 
listers. Their  subsistence  and  their  luxury  have  been 
granted  to  them  as  a  perpetuity  by  the  millions  of  busy 
workers  surrounding  them. 

In  another  quarter  of  the  city  amidst  the  banks  and 
great  business  establishments  we  find  the  predatory  rich. 
Sometimes  their  occupation  is  a  business  that  is  to  be 
transformed  into  a  monopoly  as  soon  as  possible  by  driv- 
ing weaker  competitors  to  the  wall ;  sometimes  it  is  a 
mere  juggling  with  millions,  after  the  fashion  of  a  faro 
bank,  in  which  one  may  lose  and  the  other  win,  or  a 
thousand  deluded  victims  be  fleeced,  but  in  which  the 
world  is  not  really  made  one  whit  better,  or  wiser,  or  even 
wealthier.  It  is  a  greedy  struggle  for  wealth  among  the 
greatest  gamblers  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  as  much 
worse  than  ordinary  gambling  as  the  stakes  are  larger. 
Great  energy,  immense  mental  resources,  and  talents  fit 
to  command  the  armies  of  Bonaparte  are  often  found 
among  these  pirates  of  finance,  and  it  is  pitiable  to  see 
such  wealth  of  brain  and  will  power  so  absolutely  wasted. 
If  the  "bulls  and  the  bears"  of  our  great  cities  could 
destroy  one  another  in  their  wealth  struggles,  society 
would  be  the  gainer. 

The  folly  of  society  is  that  it  regards  all  rich  men  either 
with  veneration,  or  with  detestation,  or  with  absolute  in- 
difference in  a  moral  sense,  according  to  the  prejudices 
or  associations  of  the  individual  observer.  Distinctions 
must  be  drawn.  The  rich  man  who  has  developed  his 
wealth  by  improving  production,  or  in  any  way  making 
two  blades  of  grass  grow  in  place  of  one,  is  a  benefactor 
of  the  human  race,  no  matter  how  great  his  wealth.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  idle,  luxurious  profligates,  who  con- 
trol what  they  have  never  earned,  and  the  ravenous 
beasts  of  prey  who  afflict  society  in  speculative  life,  and 


KING   MAMMON.  2/ 

rob  their  fellow-creatures  by  gambling  operations  delib- 
erately planned,  whatsoever  the  name,  are  worse  in 
their  evil  and  dangerous  effects  upon  our  country  than  all 
its  criminals  and  paupers.  Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that 
society  is  benefited  by  every  producer,  either  by  hand  or 
brain,  and  injured  by  every  idler  that  it  supports,  and  by 
every  man  whose  energies  are  devoted  to  preying  upon 
his  associates  without  developing  something  that  will 
support  mental  or  physical  life.  The  rich  idler  and  the 
greedy  speculator  are  more  detestable  in  an  honest  view 
of  society  than  the  voluntary  pauper  and  the  criminal ; 
for  society  supports  all  of  them,  and  can  compel  from 
poverty  and  vice  in  its  jails  and  asylums  a  slight  return 
from  useful  effort,  while  the  idle  and  the  predatory  rich 
are  fed  and  clothed  luxuriously  with  absolutely  no  return. 

No  man  has  an  honest  claim  upon  existence  if  he  will 
not  work  when  he  has  the  ability  and  the  opportunity. 
When  this  doctrine  of  human  duty  is  applied  as  rigor- 
ously to  the  rich  as  it  has  been  to  the  poor,  society  will 
have  made  progress  towards  justice. 

As  to  contrasted  conditions,  the  story  is  an  old  one. 
Before  Christ  came  upon  earth,  Plato  wrote:  "Any 
ordinary  city,  however  small,  is  in  fact  two  cities,  one 
the  city  of  the  poor,  the  other  the  city  of  the  rich,  at  war 
with  one  another."  In  every  modern  city  men  still  can 
be  found  who  own  block  after  block  of  buildings  on  land 
that  is  often  more  valuable  than  the  stately  structures 
reared  above  it,  and  of  greater  worth  than  if  it  contained 
the  richest  gold  mine.  The  possessors  of  this  wealth  con- 
trol it  absolutely,  but  in  many  instances  they  have  never, 
by  either  mental  or  physical  effort,  produced  one  jot  or 
tittle  of  the  property  which  society  concedes  to  them.  In 
the  same  city  we  shall  find  men  of  greater  intelligence, 
energy,  and  industry,  and  equally  meritorious  in  other 
respects,  who  are  apparently  in  every  way  more  deserv- 


28  KING   MAMMON. 

ing  of  reward  than  their  wealthy  neighbors,  and  yet  who 
suffer  the  ills  of  poverty,  or  at  least  enjoy  a  condition  far 
below  that  of  wealth.  "  Chance  !  "  the  reader  will 
exclaim.  We  shall  see  later  on  whether  the  doctrine  of 
chance  will  apply  ;  at  present  we  are  dealing  with  con- 
ditions. 

It  is  common  observation  that  one  man  has  wealth 
enough  for  thousands,  and  another  but  a  precarious  ex- 
istence. In  the  United  States,  owing  to  the  comparatively 
brief  period  during  which  the  country  has  been  populated 
by  the  whites,  the  extremes  of  social  condition  are  not  so 
noticeable  as  they  have  become  in  Europe,  where  time 
has  emphasized  class  distinctions.  Under  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  the  rich  are,  indeed,  very  rich,  but,  except  in  the 
great  cities,  the  poor  of  the  United  States  are  not  such 
rats  of  poverty  as  infest  the  old  world.  The  typical 
European  laborer  plods  at  his  task  so  long  as  God  gives 
him  sunlight,  and  his  family  work  with  him  or  at  separate 
tasks  as  necessity  demands.  The  only  exception  to  this 
labor-rule  of  life  is  the  inability  of  extreme  youth  or  age. 
The  united  efforts  of  the  family  provide  only  the  necessi- 
ties of  life  and  none  of  its  comforts,  nor  any  surplus  with 
which  to  provide  for  the  infirmities  of  old  age.  Like  the 
plough  horse  of  a  cruel  master,  the  laborer  must  toil  till 
he  breaks  down  with  the  weight  of  advancing  years,  and 
then  public  charity  will  provide  a  bare  maintenance  ;  for, 
although  we  are  still  barbarians  in  many  respects,  we 
are  at  least  civilized  to  the  extent  that  we  do  not  condemn 
our  worn-out  slaves  to  immediate  death  when  age  or  in- 
firmities put  an  end  to  their  usefulness.  Poor  men  are  in 
that  respect  treated  better  than  horses. 

Those  European  laborers  who  have  been  so  fortunate 
as  to  escape  to  America  from  these  conditions  have  hith- 
erto found  a  place  where  there  was  an  opportunity  to 
live,  and  move,  and  breathe,  without  paying  tribute  to 


KING   MAMMON.  29 

the  established  owners  of  earth  for  an  opportunity  to  pro-* 
duce  wealth,  because  on  every  hand,  and  especially  in 
the  unsettled  western  portions  of  the  country,  there  ex- 
isted a  vast  domain  of  public  land,  which  has  been  to  some 
extent  a  check  upon  the  exactions  of  earth  monopolists 
and  a  relief  from  the  crowding  of  population.  Natural 
opportunities  were  thus  afforded  to  the  man  without  means 
or  resources  save  his  own  two  hands,  and  a  safety-valve 
provided  for  popular  discontent.  The  settlement  of  this 
country  has  now  been  pushed  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  how- 
ever, and  all  the  valuable  lands,  with  but  few  exceptions, 
have  gone  under  private  ownership.  Much  of  the  land 
is  not  used,  being  held  for  speculative  purposes  ;  but,  so 
far  as  the  moneyless  citizen  is  concerned,  it  affords  no 
opportunity,  for  he  must  usually  give  up  in  interest  or 
rent  all  the  surplus  of  his  production  beyond  what  is  nec- 
essary for  his  own  sustenance. 

The  lot  of  the  laboring  farmer  and  laboring  employe 
in  the  United  States  is  still  happy  and  prosperous  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  same  classes  in  Europe,  but  the 
truth  is  becoming  every  day  more  evident  that  social 
conditions  in  this  country  are  fast  approaching  those  of 
Europe.  We  already  have  the  great  fortunes  and  the 
tyranny  inseparable  from  great  wealth  on  the  one  hand, 
with  the  idleness,  luxury,  and  aristocratic  tendencies  which 
are  the  natural  sequence  of  the  continued  control  of  great 
wealth.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  grinding  poverty 
of  the  slums  and- sweat-shops  in  the  great  cities,  and  the 
danger  that  when  our  population  increases  and  monopoly 
becomes  extended,  when  opportunities  for  independent 
effort  become  lessened  and  the  power  of  the  wealthy 
classes  more  firmly  established,  the  United  States  will  be 
the  same  discouraging,  God-forsaken  home  for  a  poor 
man  that  is  now  offered  in  the  older  countries  whence 
poor  men  migrate. 


30  KING   MAMMON. 

Once  let  the  condition  of  a  non-producing,  luxurious 
aristocracy  become  engrafted  firmly  upon  this  country 
by  the  lapse  of  time  and  the  neglect  or  ignorance  of  the 
people,  without  intelligent  legislation  to  check  its  power, 
and  the  condition  of  those  who  produce  the  food  and 
shelter  of  the  nation,  and  the  luxuries  for  the  idlers,  will 
gradually  sink  to  the  dead  level  of  the  unambitious  labor- 
life  that  now  exists  in  Europe. 

When  the  tendency  toward  aristocracy  that  now  exists 
in  the  United  States  reaches  its  final  development,  one 
class  of  people  will  inherit  wealth  and  power  for  genera- 
ation  after  generation,  in  the  same  families ;  and  another 
class  will  inherit  poverty  and  hard  work,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  those  above  them  in  social  rank  and  privilege, 
with  fewer  and  fewer  chances  of  rising  above  their  orig- 
inal position,  and  of  transforming  their  social  condition, 
as  the  country  becomes  older,  population  denser,  and  so- 
ciety grouped  into  rank  and  class  by  the  progress  of  suc- 
cessive generations. 

Under  the  present  progress,  the  transmission  of  cen- 
tralized wealth  is  developing  a  large  class  of  luxurious 
idlers  in  the  United  States,  the  wealth  aristocracy  of  the 
republic,  who  inherit  privilege  as  their  humbler  asso- 
ciates inherit  poverty.  In  the  natural  development  of  the 
present  social  condition,  undisturbed  by  changes  in  the 
principles  upon  which  it  is  based,  the  child  of  a  man  who 
has  been  a  laborer  for  wages  all  his  life  will  also  be  a  la- 
borer in  the  same  way  ;  his  children  will  be  laborers  for 
wages  ;  and  not  one  of  them  will  have  a  fair  prospect  in 
life  for  advancement  commensurate  with  effort,  nor  real 
opportunities  other  than  those  of  continual  work  under 
another  man's  inherited  power  and  privilege,  with  inade- 
quate leisure  for  self-improvement,  with  little  ambition 
for  energetic  effort,  with  no  real  expectation  of  rising 
above  his  half-servile  condition,  and  with  nothing  but 


KING   MAMMON.  31 

the  empty  name  of  a  freeman  to  distinguish  him  from 
the  slaves  of  fifty  years  ago. 

This  servile  condition,  except  where  it  has  been  alle- 
viated by  the  struggles  that  have  already  been  made  by 
organized  labor  against  the  tendency  toward  wealth  dom- 
ination, and  by  the  invention  of  machinery,  has  been  the 
history  of  European  nations,  and  it  will  be  the  inevitable 
result  in  our  own  country  unless  its  causes  are  understood 
and  removed. 

There  is  no  virtue  in  republican  institutions  that  will 
protect  us  from  such  a  condition,  for  the  power  of  wealth 
exists  independently  of  the  form  of  government.  Titles 
are  not  a  necessity  to  aristocrats.  England  may  abolish 
her  House  of  Lords  and  may  even  remove  the  titles  of  no- 
bility ;  but  if  the  wealth  now  controlled  by  that  nobility 
or  by  the  later  commercial  peerage  is  untouched,  the  power 
will  remain  and  the  Lords  can  laugh  at  the  Commons. 
If  an  individual  controls  two  hundred  million  dollars' 
worth  of  property,  it  makes  little  difference,  as  a  social 
result,  whether  we  address  him  as  Mr.  Astor  or  your 
Grace,  and  whether  he  resides  in  New  York  city  or  in 
London. 

Wealth  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  de- 
velops aristocracy  ;  and  mere  titles  and  forms  of  govern- 
ment have  but  little  to  do  with  it. 

America  will  have  an  aristocracy  unless  its  progress 
be  restrained,  as  surely  as  acorns  produce  oaks,  and 
that  aristocracy  will  control  its  government  just  as  the 
power  of  wealth  has  always  done  where  it  has  been 
permitted  to  concentrate.  We  cannot  fossilize  wealth 
and  poverty  side  by  side  and  maintain  our  government 
as  a  genuine  democracy  free  from  class  privileges.  If 
our  people  were  ignorant,  it  might  be  done  for  a  time, 
and  they  would  believe  that  wealth  has  a  divine  right  to 
reign,  as  their  ancestors  believed  that  kings  had  to  rule  ; 


32  KING   MAMMON. 

but  the  common  schools  have  made  the  laborer  a  giant, 
and  the  greatest  danger  now  is  that  he  will  use  his  strength 
too  recklessly  and,  like  the  blind  Samson,  pull  the  social 
structure  down  upon  himself. 

It  is  evident  from  the  perturbed  condition  of  the  labor- 
ing classes  in  every  civilized  country,  that  the  greater  in- 
telligence and  wider  information  spread  among  them  in 
late  years,  by  the  increased  dissemination  of  newspapers, 
magazines,  and  cheap  publications  in  book  form,  are  hav- 
ing their  natural  effect  in  stimulating  inquiry  into  the 
rights  and  wrongs  of  society.  Men  no  longer  accept  as 
self-evident  justice  the  fact  that  they  are  poor  and  other 
men  rich,  simply  because  they  find  the  wealth  so  distrib- 
uted. Men  no  longer  believe  that  an  all-wise  and  all- 
beneficent  Creator  constructed  the  social  and  political  in- 
stitutions of  this  world  exactly  as  they  found  those  con- 
ditions to  exist  when  they  were  placed  on  earth.  Men  do 
not  entirely  accept  the  idea  that  some  are  born  to  rule 
by  wealth,  any  more  than  they  now  accept  the  other  doc- 
trine of  tyranny,  that  the  king  reigns  by  divine  right. 
A  dim  suspicion  is  forcing  its  way  through  the  minds  of 
plodding  humanity,  that  a  wrong  exists  when  a  thou- 
sand children  are  born,  perhaps  within  a  day's  time,  one 
to  be  reared  in  luxury,  and  to  become  the  sole  possessor, 
without  an  effort,  of  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars, 
while  the  others,  by  the  accident  of  birth  under  unjust 
social  conditions,  are  condemned  to  a  life  of  labor  under 
the  wealth  power  of  their  fortunate  contemporary. 

Hitherto  men  have  believed,  because  they  have  been 
taught,  that  all  poverty  is  the  result  of  a  lack  of  thrift,  of 
energy,  of  brains,  of  endurance,  or,  at  least,  of  good  fort- 
une ;  that  all  wealth  is  the  just  reward  of  diligence,  pru- 
dence, sagacity,  and  self-denial.  Now  these  men  begin  to 
comprehend  that  thousands  obtain  great  wealth  without 
ever  having  possessed  or  exhibited  the  virtues  that  are  sup- 


KING   MAMMON.  33 

posed  to  produce  it,  and  that  millions  of  men,  able  and 
willing  to  work,  are  brought  to  the  verge  of  starvation, 
not  by  their  own  neglect,  but  for  lack  of  opportunities  to 
honestly  maintain  their  own  existence  by  their  own  labor. 

The  doctrine  that  wealth  distribution  is  due  entirely  to 
natural  causes  inherent  in  the  varying  natures  of  men,  is 
now  frequently  repudiated.  Few  men,  perhaps,  have 
analyzed  social  conditions  with  care  enough  to  determine 
the  exact  nature  of  the  wrong,  or  to  say  exactly  how  and 
why  social  institutions  are  unjust,  but  when  they  feel  the 
terrible  effects  and  the  heavy  burdens  embodied  in  the 
industrial  depression,  they  know  that  injustice  exists,  and 
they  denounce  the  condition,  although  they  may  not 
understand  its  cause. 

The  great  danger  to  society  in  the  twentieth  century 
will  be  unintelligent  resentment  against  wrongs  that  are 
not  understood.  When  men  try  to  correct  social  evils, 
without  clearly  understanding  the  nature  of  their  rights 
and  without  observing  the  limits  of  justice,  the  result  is 
civil  war,  succeeded  by  a  new  condition  of  society  no 
better  than  the  first,  because  men  quarrel  over  evil  effects, 
without  removing  the  evil  causes.  The  fearful  outbreak 
of  a  tyrannized  populace  in  the  French  Revolution  is  an 
example  of  the  revolt  of  men  made  desperate  by  an  unjust 
social  condition,  but  without  conception  of  its  real  causes. 
The  result  of  that  eruption,  in  which  God  was  denied  and 
reason  enthroned,  in  name  only,  was  merely  the  blood- 
thirsty destruction  of  lives  and  the  waste  of  wealth,  fol- 
lowed by  the  reestablishment  of  the  essential  causes 
which  produced  the  revolution,  and  which  may  again 
bring  a  rapid  visitation  of  popular  wrath  upon  France 
under  the  republic,  as  they  did  under  the  monarchy. 
The  French  Revolution  was  a  war  upon  effects  only. 

The  great  railroad  strike  of  1894  in  the  United  States, 
in  which  thousands  of  men  violated  law  and  order  by 
3 


34  KING   MAMMON. 

forcibly  occupying  railroad  property  and  obstructing  the 
progress  of  trains,  and  during  which  millions  of  people 
sympathized  with  the  objects  of  the  strike  in  its  incipience, 
and  until  it  began  to  degenerate  into  murder  and  the 
reckless  destruction  of  property,  is  another  instance  of 
the  prevailing  custom  of  trying  to  remove  wrongs  by  fight- 
ing their  effects  instead  of  removing  their  causes. 

It  is  important  that  social  problems  shall  be  freely  dis- 
cussed and  carefully  considered,  for  that  strike  and  the 
great  sympathy  extended  to  the  strikers  by  the  people, 
are  premonitory  symptoms  of  revolution.  The  coming 
revolution  may  be  by  ballots  or  by  bullets,  but  in  one 
form  or  the  other  it  will  certainly  be  effected,  and  upon 
the  intelligence  and  education  of  the  people  in  these 
social  questions,  will  depend  its  character.  There  exists 
among  the  people  of  this  country  a  bitter  discontent  with 
political  and  social  institutions,  and  there  can  be  but'  one 
of  two  results — reform  by  ballot  or  attempted  reformation 
by  blood. 

England  is  in  even  a  more  unsettled  social  condition, 
and  the  people  are  inquiring  why  they  toil  that  idle  aris- 
tocracy and  wealth-profligacy  shall  exist.  There  is  a 
growing  disposition  to  revolt  against  the  power  and 
privileges  of  the  wealth-aristocracy  and  land  monopo- 
lists of  the  British  Isles,  and  the  social  crisis  may  occur 
there  before  it  does  in  America. 

During  the  industrial  depression  beginning  in  1893, 
social  revolution  probably  approached  nearer  in  the  United 
States  than  many  supposed,  for  in  such  periods  a  spark  of 
wrong  can  be  easily  fanned  into  a  flame  of  resentment ; 
but  with  the  return  of  activity  in  business  and  opportun- 
ities for  employment,  the  bitterest  discontent  will  be  tem- 
porarily allayed,  and  the  crisis  postponed.  That  crisis — 
when  men  will  demand  what  they  believe  to  be  justice, 
peaceably,  if  they  can,  forcibly,  if  they  must — can  only 


KING   MAMMON.  35 

be  delayed  ;  for  we  shall  have  other  periods  of  depression 
in  business  and  destruction  of  opportunities  in  labor  that 
will  turn  men  into  famished  wolves  ready  to  devour  and 
destroy. 

If  the  people  will  carefully  and  intelligently  consider 
the  nature  of  the  conditions  by  which  they  are  surrounded 
and  will  be  guided  by  the  dictates  of  reason  in  the  pursuit 
of  justice,  the  present  movement  will  result  in  the  grandest 
triumph  for  liberty  and  equal  rights  the  world  has  ever 
known ;  but  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  permit  their 
actions  to  be  controlled  by  ignorance,  envy  and  hatred 
towards  those  who  have  become  the  custodians  of  wealth 
and  the  manipulators  of  wealth-power ;  if  they  seek 
merely  to  destroy  and  not  to  reform  ;  if  they  deal  not 
justice  to  the  millionaire  as  well  as  to  the  pauper,  no 
attempt  at  social  transformation  can  result  in  anything 
but  social  disorder  and  possibly  the  horrors  of  civil  war. 
Social  revolution  may  advance  civilization  or  it  may 
retard  it.  If  there  be  genuine  progress,  intelligence  must 
reign. 

Let  the  discontented  subjects  of  King  Mammon  inquire 
not  what  they  have  the  power  to  do,  but  what  they  have 
the  right  to  do,  if  they  would  secure  justice  and  equal 
privileges.  Unintelligent  and  unfair  action  will  lead  them 
into  the  quicksands  of  anarchy. 


36  KING   MAMMON. 


CHAPTER    III. 

SOME  RIGHTS  AND  WRONGS. 

"  Citizens,  yon  are  brothers,  yet  God  has  framed  you  differently.  Some 
of  you  have  the pcnuer  of  command,  and  these  he  has  composed  of  gold,  where- 
fore also  they  have  the  greatest  honor  ;  others  of  silver,  to  be  auxiliaries  ; 
others  again,  who  are  to  be  husbandmen  and  craftsmen,  he  has  made  of 
brass  and  iron  ;  and  the  species  will  often  be  preserved  in  the  children. 
But  as  you  are  of  the  same  original  family,  a  golden  parent  will  sometimes 
have  a  silver  son,  and  a  silver  parent  a  golden  son.  And  God  proclaims 
to  the  rulers  as  a  first  principle  that  if  the  son  of  a  golden  or  silver  parent 
has  an  admixture  of  brass  and  iron,  then  Nature  orders  a  transposition 
of  ranks." — PLATO. 

No  belief  is  herein  expressed  in  either  the  justice,  or  the 
benefits,  or  the  possibility  of  an  absolutely  equal  distribu- 
tion of  wealth.  The  social  problems  are,  as  treated  in 
this  volume,  how  to  give  men  equal  opportunities,  or  at 
least  some  approach  to  equal  opportunities  ;  how  to  pre- 
vent wealth-tyranny,  just  as  we  would  try  to  prevent  all 
other  forms  of  tyranny  ;  how  to  break  up  the  luxurious 
idleness  and  the  predatory  viciousness  of  certain  rich 
men  ;  and  how  to  lessen  the  ignorance,  and  vice,  and 
destitution  of  the  lower  levels,  and  to  remove  at  least  a 
portion  of  the  enforced  idleness  of  men  who  want  work 
and  cannot  find  the  opportunity  of  working.  In  a  word, 
both  ends  of  the  social  scale  must  be  attacked  and  in- 
justice destroyed  wherever  we  can  find  it.  Society,  in 
self-protection,  must  give  the  rich  idler  a  chance  to  work, 
and  give  the  man  who  has  been  carrying  his  blankets  in 
search  of  labor  a  fair  opportunity  of  doing  likewise.  If 
society  neglects  this  plain  duty,  nature  compels  us — you 
and  me  and  all  others  who  are  so  fortunate  as  to  possess 
fair  opportunities — to  support  not  only  the  poor  fellows 


KING   MAMMON.  37 

who  want  work  and  cannot  find  it,  but  the  rich  fellows 
who  are  cursed  with  so  much  money  that  they  either 
dawdle  out  their  lives  in  useless  vanities  or  else  domineer 
as  tyrants  over  their  associates.  The  workers  must  sup- 
port the  workless,  and  there  is  no  escape  from  this  neces- 
sity. 

Thousands  of  men  do  not  believe  there  is  any  injustice 
in  the  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty.  To  these  people, 
wealth,  no  matter  how  great,  is  the  just  and  appropriate 
reward  of  effort  and  good-fortune  ;  poverty,  no  matter 
how  squalid,  nor  what  its  nature,  is  the  equally  just  penalty 
for  the  neglect  of  opportunities  or  the  absence  of  good- 
fortune.  Such  people  recognize  no  effect  of  human  laws 
in  producing  the  rich  and  the  poor,  but  place  all  the  re- 
sponsibility on  nature  ;  or,  if  they  be  inclined  toward 
religion,  they  devoutly  attach  the  responsibility  to  the 
fiats  of  Almighty  God  and  piously  consider  that  His  pur- 
poses are  too  deep  and  inscrutable  for  their  comprehen- 
sion. According  to  the  ideas  of  such  thinkers,  "When 
some  men  become  rich  and  others  remain  poor,  it  is  be- 
cause they  are  differently  constituted,  or  because  they 
have  different  luck,  and  there  is  no  governmental  injustice 
whatever  involved  in  such  conditions." 

This  doctrine  of  wealth  and  poverty  is  very  commonly 
accepted,  and  assertions  like  that  quoted  are  invariably 
followed  by  the  declaration  that,  "if  all  the  wealth  were 
equally  divided  in  any  nation  or  in  the  world,  within  a 
single  hour  after  the  division  it  would  commence  to 
concentrate,  on  account  of  the  natural  differences  in 
humanity.  Some  men  would  save  and  accumulate  ; 
others  would  waste  and  suffer."  Like  all  other  deceptive 
fallacies,  this  theory  of  wealth-distribution  is  partly  true. 
When  applied  to  the  life  of  an  individual,  comprising  an 
average  period  of  about  thirty-five  years,  it  is  nearly  cor- 
rect. We  all  know  that  when  men  are  given  the  same 


38  KING   MAMMON. 

opportunities,  some  will  gather  wealth  and  others  suffer 
poverty,  because  of  innate  differences  over  which  society 
has  no  control.  But  when  the  same  theory  is  applied  to 
the  life  of  a  nation  instead  of  the  life  of  an  individual, 
and  is  made  to  account  for  the  wealth  possession  that  has 
existed  in  a  period  of  from  one  hundred  to  one  thousand 
years,  it  becomes  one  of  the  most  cruel  falsehoods  that 
ever  cursed  humanity  and  defeated  justice. 

Right  here,  then,  the  man  who  believes  that  the  laws  of 
nature  and  not  the  laws  of  man  control  wealth  centraliza- 
tion as  it  now  exists,  should  note  that  his  conclusions 
are  approved  so  far  as  a  single  generation  of  humanity  is 
concerned  ;  but  that  they  are  denied  if  it  be  meant  that 
natural  laws  alone  produce  the  social  conditions  which 
have  arisen  under  the  succession  of  many  generations 
and  developed  into  the  wealth  distribution  that  now  exists 
all  over  the  civilized  world. 

The  truth  of  this  statement  may  be  proved  later  on  ;  it 
is  necessary  at  present  to  investigate  some  of  the  wrongs 
and  dangers  of  our  social  condition. 

Another  class  of  men  who  have  devoted  casual  thought 
to  social  progress  admit  that  there  is  something  wrong 
in  wealth  possession  and  control,  but  they  believe  that 
nothing  can  be  done  to  equalize  or  tend  to  equalize  the 
distribution.  "We  always  have  had,  and  we  always 
shall  have  the  rich  and  the  poor,"  say  these  people,  "  and 
it  is  useless  to  struggle  against  nature."  There  is  some 
truth  in  this  belief,  but  it  is  not  all  truth.  So  long  as 
humanity  struggles  for  existence  by  individual  effort  and 
competition,  there  must  always  be  great  difference  in 
the  wealth  of  men,  and  justly  so  ;  but  it  does  not  fol- 
low from  this  truth  that,  even  under  the  competitive 
system,  by  which  all  our  social  progress  is  accomplished, 
there  should  be  such  tremendous  inequalities  of  wealth 
distribution  as  now  exist.  Some  inequality  of  wealth  as 


KING   MAMMON.  39 

the  reward  of  effort  justly  results  from  the  varying  efforts 
and  ability  of  different  men  ;  but  all  inequality  does  not 
result  in  that  way,  and  the  really  baneful  effects  of 
wealth  control  are  due  to  an  entirely  different  cause, 
which  is  solely  the  result  of  defective  human  institutions, 
and  which  can  be  rectified  by  changes  in  our  laws.  The 
great  danger  and  the  essential  wrong  of  wealth  central- 
ization lies  in  the  fact  that  a  social  condition  based 
upon  its  existence  builds  up  a  tyranny  over  the  people 
and  deprives  them  of  liberty  and  equal  rights,  just  as  surely 
as  the  government  of  any  Czar  or  Sultan.  Great  power  in- 
evitably goes  with  great  wealth,  and  it  is  quite  as  dan- 
gerous to  the  liberties  of  the  people  who  entrust  wealth 
power  absolutely  in  the  hands  of  a  few  for  any  great 
length  of  time,  as  it  would  be  to  place  the  actual  edicts 
of  government  under  the  absolute  control  of  the  same 
number  of  men  for  an  indefinite  period.  Some  wealthy 
men  are  actuated  by  a  higher  sense  of  justice  than  the 
average  of  humanity,  just  as  some  absolute  rulers  have 
been  characterized  by  justice  and  benevolence  ;  but  when- 
ever wealth  concentrates  the  power  exists,  and  when  a 
bad  man  happens  to  hold  the  power  by  owning  the 
wealth,  he  becomes  a  tyrant.  It  is  no  more  safe  for  the 
people  of  the  United  States  to  permit  the  continued  exist- 
ence of  fortunes  of  from  fifty  to  two  hundred  millions  of 
dollars  than  it  would  be  for  them  to  establish  a  body  of 
dictators  to  formulate  our  national  legislation  at  their 
own  pleasure,  for  in  either  event  the  people  will  eventu- 
ally rise  in  rebellion  against  the  tyranny  and  iniquity  of 
the  condition.  The  state  legislatures  of  the  Union  and 
our  congressional  halls  are  now  surrounded  at  every  ses- 
sion by  the  emissaries  of  wealthy  men  and  wealthy  syn- 
dicates, who  are  employed  to  secure  legislation  bene- 
ficial to  class  interests,  or  to  defeat  other  legislation  that 
is  inimical  to  some  millionaire's  schemes. 


40  KING   MAMMON. 

The  government  of  our  great  cities  is  a  mass  of  corrupt 
influences  wielded  by  the  few  who  control  their  wealth, 
and  the  municipal  officials  are  frequently  puppets  under 
the  control  of  unseen  masters  whose  golden  threads  move 
mayor  and  councilmen  to  the  right  or  left,  according  to 
the  plans  by  which  the  Mammon  princes  expect  to  sub- 
due the  people. 

Bribery  by  payment  of  money,  bribery  by  the  exchange 
of  votes  for  different  kinds  of  class  legislation,  under  the 
technical  name  of  " log-rolling,"  and  bribery  by  the  ten- 
der of  official  position  control  our  legislation  in  what  we 
call  Free  America. 

For  incidents  substantiating  the  corrupt  influence  of 
money  in  legislation  we  have  only  to  scrutinize  the  daily 
papers  and  associate  with  "practical  politicians,"  who 
have  entered  politics  for  money  just  as  they  would  enter 
any  other  business.  The  people  understand  these  un- 
fortunate conditions,  and  their  comprehension  of  the  evil 
is  what  causes  the  despairing  cry:  "What  is  the  use  of 
voting  ?  "  The  session  of  congress  during  the  summer  of 
1894  revealed  a  condition  that  is  truly  startling.  When 
concentrated  wealth  in  the  form  of  great  trusts  appears 
in  the  halls  of  national  legislation  to  demand  tribute  of 
the  people,  is  it  not  time  to  protest? 

There  is  an  argument,  popular  with  thoughtless  people, 
that  honest  men  should  be  elected  to  office,  and  that 
when  such  men  are  selected,  all  will  be  well. 

The  dangerous  condition  of  legislative  methods  does 
not  result  from  exceptional  personal  dishonesty.  All 
legislative  bodies  are  merely  samples  of  the  people  who 
elect  them,  and  they  are  not  usually  any  less  scrupulous 
or  any  more  dishonest  than  their  constituents.  Such 
assemblages  always  have  contained  and  possibly  always 
will  contain  some  honest  and  some  dishonest  men,  but 
the  average  of  humanity  and  the  average  of  legislative 


KING   MAMMON.  4! 

bodies  are  quite  as  honest  now  and  probably  more  so 
than  at  any  time  in  the  past.  So  far  as  this  country 
is  concerned,  the  excessive  corruption  of  the  present 
day  is  due  to  the  phenomenal  increase  and  concentra- 
tion of  wealth  during  the  past  fifty  years,  and  the  pas- 
sive condition  of  the  people  who  have  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  enchained  by  a  tyranny  that  is  new  in  this 
country,  though  old  in  the  world.  Our  legislative  bodies 
are  to-day  surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  pecuniary  temp- 
tations that  scarcely  existed  during  the  early  days  of  the 
republic.  Subjected  to  the  same  influences,  the  legislators 
of  the  past  would  have  been  quite  as  corrupt  as  our  own 
thieves,  and,  no  doubt,  grosser  villains  ;  but  there  was  then 
not  so  much  available  lucre  in  the  hands  of  a  few  per- 
sonages with  which  to  control  them.  Great  fortunes 
and  wealthy  combinations  appear  on  every  hand  now, 
where  they  scarcely  existed  when  the  first  congress 
assembled.  The  "sack  "  is  now  opened  wherever  public 
action  occurs  in  a  way  to  materially  affect  moneyed 
interests,  and  the  rights  of  the  people  are  thus  sacrificed, 
not  because  humanity  in  general,  or  even  the  legislators, 
have  become  more  dishonest  than  they  used  to  be,  but 
because  the  insidious  power  of  the  wealth-tyrant  that 
this  country  has  permitted  to  grow  into  a  vigorous  exist- 
ence, is  now  beginning  to  stifle  the  liberties  of  the  people. 
The  Czar  and  the  Sultan  issue  direct  edicts  to  enforce 
their  tyranny ;  wealth  simply  buys  what  it  wants,  and 
the  result  to  the  people  is  the  same. 

The  great  trust  or  syndicate  is  a  modern  evolution  of 
wealth  power  that  now  excites  the  strongest  resentment 
among  the  people.  It  is  a  Frankenstein's  demon,  which 
they  have  created  themselves,  but  which  now  threatens 
to  destroy  them.  When  the  first  corporations  were  estab- 
lished and  when  men  laughed  at  the  idea  of  successful  as- 
sociation in  that  way,  the  trust  could  not  be  foreseen  in 


42  KING   MAMMON. 

the  dim  future.  So,  in  the  light  of  the  present,  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  penetrate  the  mists  ahead  of  us  and  determine 
what  will  be  the  evolution  of  the  trust. 

Individuals  have  made  corporations  ;  corporations  have 
become  trusts  ;  what  will  trusts  become  ? '  That  problem 
will  not  be  discussed  here.  It  is  evident,  however,  that 
the  trust  is  not  the  primary  evil  from  which  the  people 
may  expect  the  danger  of  the  future.  If  the  people 
throttle  the  trusts  and  destroy  them,  they  have  merely 
destroyed  one  manifestation  of  wealth  power  without  free- 
ing themselves  from  the  power  itself.  It  makes  little  dif- 
ference to  a  people  desiring  freedom,  whether  their  legisla- 
tion be  purchased  by  one  man  or  a  combination  of  men, 
so  long  as  the  concentrated  wealth  under  the  control  of 
one  or  a  few  exists  to  purchase  it. 

The  tyranny  of  trusts  is  only  one  effect  of  the  many  bad 
conditions  that  arise  out  of  immense  wealth  under  the 
unrestricted  control  of  a  few  persons  ;  and  it  is  only  one 
means  of  enforcing  the  unjust  and  unnatural  power  that 
its  possession  confers  upon  them.  We  may  destroy  every 
trust  that  now  exists,  and  a  new  development  of  wealth 
power  will  arise  to  torment  and  oppress  the  people.  If 
a  tree  bears  bad  fruit,  cut  it  down  ;  but  do  not  imagine 
that  real  relief  from  such  trees  can  come  from  gathering 
the  fruit  every  year  when  ripe,  and  burying  it  under  a  few 
inches  of  soil. 

The  power  of  wealth  to  control  and  limit  the  opportuni- 
ties and  acquirements  of  the  people  is  the  essence  of  ex- 

1  "  Call  the  combination  a  partnership  and  it  is  all  right ;  call  it  a  cor- 
poration and  it  is  barely  tolerated  ;  call  it  a  trust  and  it  is  a  crime ;  yet 
the  difference  is  only  in  manner.  .  .  .  Under  George  III.,  statutes  were 
enacted  in  England  making  it  a  penal  offense  for  any  number  of  persons 
above  five  to  associate  either  by  covenant  or  partnership  for  dealing  in 
bricks,  coals  and  other  commodities.  This  was  due  to  the  belief  that 
combinations  raised  prices,  repressed  competition  and  monopolized  busi- 
ness."—See  "Ten  Years  of  Standard  Oil  Trust"  in  Forum,  vol.  13, 
page  303. 


KING   MAMMON.  43 

isting  danger,  and  the  almost  absolute  extinction  of  a 
poor  man's  natural  rights  the  ultimate  result  of  that 
power.  The  extent  to  which  tyranny  is  inflicted  at  any 
given  period  of  the  world's  history  is  never  fully  realized 
by  the  people  then  existing.  Fifty  years  ago,  when  ne- 
groes were  slaves,  most  people  did  not  regard  slavery  as 
an  insufferable  wrong,  but  only  as  a  ''peculiar  institu- 
tion," and  only  the  more  intelligent  of  the  negroes  felt 
the  iniquity  of  their  own  subjugation,  except,  perhaps, 
when  they  were  flogged.  Five  hundred  years  ago,  when 
all  women  were  slaves,  this  particular  form  of  the  "  pe- 
culiar institution  "  was  not  regarded,  even  by  the  women, 
as  .being  very  objectionable.  Some  men  are  tyrants  and 
others  are  tyrannized  in  all  ages  of  the  world  without 
either  class  understanding  the  position  it  occupies,  simply 
because  men  do  not  usually  think,  and  because  in  primi- 
tive existence  tyranny  seems  right.  If  any  man  had  lived 
from  the  dawn  of  civilization  in  this  world  till  the  present 
time,  seeing  the  rise  and  fall  ©f  nations,  the  growth  of 
arts,  sciences,  and  intelligence,  and  the  gradual  struggle 
from  darkness  toward  the^  light,  he  would  comprehend 
something  of  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  social  existence 
without  much  further  investigation  and  reflection.  But 
instead  of  possessing  this  vast  experience  in  the  world's 
history  man  comes  upon  earth  without  knowledge  of  its 
previous  condition  ;  he  is  usually  in  possession  of  his 
faculties  for  a  period  much  less  than  the  allotted  term  of 
three  score  years  and  ten  ;  he  can  obtain  a  knowledge 
of  the  world  only  from  the  dim  records  of  history,  from 
the  things  which  he  sees  surrounding  him,  and  from  such 
reasoning  powers  as  Nature  may  have  bestowed  upon 
him  ;  he  is  often  thoroughly  absorbed  by  the  cares  of  pro- 
viding for  his  own  subsistence  and  progression,  or  in  pro- 
tecting those  naturally  dependent  upon  him  ;  and  finally 
he  dies,  frequently  without  having  devoted  a  serious 


44  KING  MAMMON. 

thought  to  the  nature  of  his  environment  and  the  justice 
or  injustice  of  the  social  conditions  under  which  he  exists. 
Millions  of  men  have  come  into  the  world  and  gone  out 
of  it  in  this  way,  supposing  that  social  institutions  as 
they  found  them,  no  matter  how  defective  at  that  period, 
were  nearly  if  not  quite  the  best  that  humanity  would 
ever  attain,  accepting  the  world  as  they  found  it,  and 
leaving  it  without  ever  having  suspected  that  they  either 
inflicted  gross  and  brutal  wrongs  upon  their  associates,  or 
suffered  them  at  the  hands  of  other  men.  Man  is  born  with 
no  knowledge  of  any  other  existence,  and  the  tendency 
of  his  developing  mind  is  to  believe  that  social  institutions 
are  right  because  they  exist  and  because  he  knows  of 
nothing  different.  He  is  taught  that  society  is  justly 
organized,  or  he  conceives  without  investigation  that  such 
is  the  case.  Designing  men  who  may  have  greater  intel- 
ligence than  he  sometimes  keep  down  inquiry  by  posi- 
tively asserting  that  what  injustice  is  palpably  evident 
exists  in  the  laws  of  nature  and  not  in  the  laws  of  man. 
The  temporary  inhabitant  of  earth  toils  without  thinking, 
accepts  the  conditions  of  earth  as  he  finds  them,  and  so 
passes  out  of  existence,  although  enough  of  rebellion 
against  iniquity  and  of  pity  for  human  sorrow  is  mani- 
fested, little  by  little,  to  make  what  we  consider  improve- 
ment in  social  conditions. 

No  man  who  is  born  to-day  without  having  wealth  be- 
stowed upon  him  can  possess  a  fair  opportunity  in  life, 
obtain  equal  rights  at  his  inception,  or  live  under  just 
conditions. 

In  this  thought  is  embodied  what  apparently  constitutes 
the  great  wrong  in  social  conditions. 

Let  us  make  a  comparison.  Suppose  that  twenty-five 
men  are  shipwrecked  upon  an  island  far  out  in  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  The  sailors  came  there  without  their  own  consent 
by  the  compulsion  of  Nature  or  Providence,  just  as  men 


KING   MAMMON.  45 

are  born  upon  earth.  The  castaways  proceed  to  appro- 
priate the  land  and  natural  wealth  of  the  island  and  es- 
tablish regulations  whereby  each  of  the  twenty-five  con- 
trols absolutely  some  portion,  and  all  united  control  the 
entire  island  and  its  products. 

Shortly  afterwards  Nature  or  Providence  again  wrecks 
a  ship  and  sends  twenty-five  more  victims  of  the  storms 
to  seek  existence  on  the  same  shores,  stranding  them  as 
before  without  their  own  volition. 

The  newcomers  expect  a  share  in  the  benefits  of  the 
land  they  enter,  but  when  they  explore  the  island  they 
ascertain  that  they  have  absolutely  no  privileges. 

The  land  and  its  products  have  been  appropriated  by 
their  predecessors,  under  a  system  which  leaves  no  op- 
portunities to  other  unfortunate  sailors,  and  those  who 
reached  the  island  last  become  the  slaves  of  those  who 
preceded  them,  because  they  have  no  means  of  securing 
an  independent  existence. 

That  island  is  a  symbol  of  earth  to-day.  The  child  of 
a  poor  man  is  a  shipwrecked  sailor  stranded  on  the  shore 
of  life.  In  every  civilized  nation  he  finds  the  land  appro- 
priated, distributed,  and  controlled  by  his  predecessors. 
He  finds  the  products  of  the  soil  as  moulded  by  the  hand 
of  man  into  buildings,  machinery,  tools,  food,  and  cloth- 
ing, or  money  as  a  representative  of  all,  stored  in  abun- 
dance all  around  him,  but  tribute  must  be  paid  for  a  place 
in  which  to  set  the  infant's  cradle.  The  poor  man's  child 
must  pay  rent  to  the  rich  man's  child  for  land  to  cultivate, 
and  interest  for  tools  to  use,  before  he  can  have  any 
opportunity  for  independent  exertion  ;  and  before  he  can 
possess  aught  to  pay  with,  he  must  work  for  those  who 
have  monopolized  the  earth,  and  must  permit  his  wages  to 
be  fixed  by  the  competition  of  millions  of  other  men  newly 
arrived  by  birth  under  the  same  conditions.  Those  who 
will  sell  their  labor  to  the  fortunate  possessors  of  earth  for 


46  KING   MAMMON. 

the  least  remuneration  -receive  employment,  and  under 
these  restrictions  all  can  strive  for  what  advancement 
they  can  secure,  the  condition  being  continually  aggra- 
vated by  the  constant  arrival  of  new  men  by  birth,  and 
ameliorated  by  the  departure  of  those  whom  death  calls 
away,  and  by  the  inventions  and  discoveries  that  increase 
the  power  of  labor  to  produce  life-sustenance. 

"Nonsense  !  "  my  reader  will  probably  exclaim  ;  "these 
sons  of  poor  men  concerning  whose  condition  you  com- 
plain, eventually  become  heirs  to  the  earth  themselves, 
when  their  forefathers  die,  and  thus  leave  it  to  the  genera- 
tion which  succeeds  them,  so  there  is  no  injustice." 

The  poor  man's  child  never  becomes  an  heir  to  any  part 
of  earth,  and  his  relation  to  society  is  essentially  that  of 
slavery  from  which,  in  a  country  having  great  resources 
and  a  comparatively  sparse  population,  he  may  easily 
work  out  his  freedom,  but  in  which  he  usually  remains  in 
life  servitude  where  the  monopolization  of  opportunities 
for  existence  has  become  more  extreme. 

There  is  no  monopoly  so  great,  no  trust  so  gigantic,  no 
power  so  tyrannical  as  the  social  combination  which  ex- 
ists in  every  country  of  the  civilized  world,  and  which 
says  to  every  penniless  little  immigrant  from  the  shores 
of  that  mysterious  country  whence  all  humanity  comes  : 
"You  must  toil  as  we  direct,  or  you  shall  starve.  Land 
you  have  none  ;  wealth  you  have  none  ;  rights  you  have 
none.  The  earth  with  all  there  is  upon  it  is  absolutely  our 
own,  and  unless  you  labor  under  the  conditions  that  we 
may  impose,  you  shall  not  exist." 


KING  MAMMON.  47 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DEVIL   TAKE   THE    HINDMOST. 

"  Even  the  best  of  modern  civilizations  appears  to  me  to  exhibit  a  condi- 
tion of  mankind  "which  neither  embodies  any  worthy  ideal  nor  even  pos- 
sesses the  merit  of  stability.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  express  the  opinion  that  if 
there  is  no  hope  of  a  large  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  greater  part 
of  the  human  family  ;  if  it  is  true  that  the  increase  of  knowledge,  the  win- 
ning of  a  greater  domain  over  nature  which  is  its  consequence,  and  the 
wealth  which  follows  upon  that  domain  are  to  make  no  difference  in  the 
extent  and  the  intensity  of  want  with  its  concomitant  physical  and  moral 
degradation  among  the  masses  of  the  people,  I  should  hail  the  advent  of 
some  kindly  comet  which  would  sweep  the  whole  affair  away  as  a  desirable 
consummation" — THOMAS  H.  HUXLEY. 

THE  ideas  of  competition  and  individual  effort  are  at 
the  basis  of  society  in  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  That  is,  although  we  have  business 
partnerships  under  varying  methods,  designated  as  firms 
and  corporations,  and  matrimonial  partnerships,  (in 
which  business  is  very  frequently  the  controlling  motive,) 
and  occasionally  a  movement  among  a  few  enthusiastic 
theorists  to  inaugurate  social  co-operation  on  a  limited 
colonial  scale,  there  exists  no  really  great  or  general 
partnership  amongst  all  the  people  of  any  nation,  where- 
by they  labor  either  equally  or  in  proportion  to  the  ability 
of  each  for  the  common  good  and  share  either  equally  or 
in  proportion  to  their  needs  from  a  common  fund  of 
wealth.  A  savage  tribe  in  which  the  individuals  hunt 
their  game  and  gather  their  fruits  by  general  effort  into  a 
common  stock,  from  which  each  afterwards  draws  his 
personal  supplies,  is  a  simple  example  of  co-operation. 

When  each  savage  of  the  tribe  hunts  and  fishes  for 
himself,  regardless  of  what  the  others  secure,  their  social 


48  KING   MAMMON. 

existence  is  an  example  of  competitive  effort.  Each  sys- 
tem has  advantages  and  disadvantages  that  may  be  briefly 
noted,  although  a  comparison  of  the  merits  and  demerits 
of  communism  and  competition  would  alone  require  a 
volume  larger  than  this  book. 

Co-operation  is  economical,  for  the  units  of  that  form 
of  society  do  not  purposely  obstruct  or  interfere  with  one 
another's  efforts,  nor  hinder  progress  that  is  sure  to  result 
in  the  general  good.  When  our  savages  hunt  co-oper- 
atively, they  do  not  purposely  frighten  the  game  away 
from  one  another,  but  all  assist  harmoniously  in  capturing 
it.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  competition  lacks  this 
advantage,  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  keen  spur  to  effort  and 
progress.  When  a  man  feels  that  his  own  unaided  efforts 
must  win  his  success  and  comforts,  or  protect  him  from 
want,  he  thinks  and  he  works.  He  is  carried  forward  by 
a  fierce  energy  that  could  never  stimulate  him  under  co- 
operation, but  he  is  continually  set  back  in  all  his  efforts 
by  the  adverse  struggles  of  other  men  animated  by  the 
same  fears  and  desires  that  urge  him  onward.  Under 
competition  the  savage  often  frightens  away  the  game 
he  desires  but  cannot  take  himself,  rather  than  see  his 
opponent  capture  it.  Men  existing  under  a  co-operative 
system  would  probably  become  less  selfish  but  more 
indolent.  Under  competition,  their  characters  have  dis- 
played energy,  activity,  shrewdness,  selfishness,  and 
greed. 

Except  in  isolated  and  limited  communities  where 
enthusiasts  have  temporarily  established  co-operative 
colonies,  all  civilization  has  been  accomplished  under 
competition,  either  among  individuals  or  among  tribes  ; 
and  individual  competition  existing  for  generation  after 
generation  has  undoubtedly  had  its  effect  in  developing 
the  shrewd,  active,  daring,  an  1  greedy  natures  that  form 
such  a  preponderance  of  humanity. 


KING   MAMMON.  49 

Edward  Bellamy,  by  glimpses  of  life  in  the  Twentieth 
Century,  revealed  in  "Looking  Backward,"  presents  an 
interesting  view  of  national  co-operation. 

To  some  people  this  picture  of  co-operation  is  attractive  ; 
others,  preferring  the  boisterous  struggle  of  individual  effort 
and  the  excitement  attending  the  prospect  of  great  success 
accompanied  by  the  dread  alternative  of  dismal  failure, 
are  repelled  ;  still  others  believe  in  the  benefits  but  not 
in  the  present  practicability  of  co-operative  society. 

Extended  discussion  of  nationalism  is  in  the  present, 
perhaps,  comparatively  useless,  for  the  promised  land  is, 
probably,  still  far  away  from  us,  and  we  are  actually  liv- 
ing in  the  nineteenth  century,  with  a  dangerous  social 
problem  before  us,  which  has  been  developed  under  com- 
petition and  which  must,  apparently,  be  solved  under  the 
same  system  of  human  effort. 

There  can  be  no  immediate  change  from  competition 
to  co-operation,  for  social  evolution  is  never  accomplished 
in  that  way. 

Society  is  now  progressing  under  competition,  and  it 
must  so  continue  in  the  main  for  many  years. 

Having  agreed  to  test  the  justice  of  such  propositions 
as  are  advanced  in  this  book  by  the  competitive  creed, 
the  author  will  now  inquire  :  What  does  every  man  re- 
gard as  just  conditions  under  competition?  The  natural 
and  usual  answer,  accepted  by  all  who  have  sense  enough 
and  pluck  enough  to  struggle,  is  expressed  in  the  common 
saying  :  "A  fair  field  and  no  favors." 

Every  man  should  have  an  equal  opportunity. 

Give  no  man  any  advantage. 

If  competition  be  a  race,  give  every  man,  when  pos- 
sible, an  equal  start. 

If  life  be  a  battle,  see  that  every  warrior  is  armed  equally 
for  the  fray,  and  let  the  dazzling  sun  shine  directly  in  the 
eyes  of  none. 
4 


5O  KING   MAMMON. 

Regard  life  just  as  you  would  view  a  tournament,  and 
do  not  clap  your  hands  for  a  victor  who  is  armed  and 
mounted,  and  who,  therefore,  vanquishes  an  opponent 
guarded  only  by  nature's  naked  fists. 

Every  creature  inspired  with  genuine  manliness  of  the 
militant  type  is  willing  to  say:  ''I  will  struggle  for 
prosperity  on  the  bosom  of  Mother  Earth  and  accept  my 
chances  and  my  fate  in  competition  with  every  other 
man  in  the  race  of  life,  if  I  have  a  fair  start  and  an  equal 
opportunity  to  secure  my  share  of  wealth  and  comforts 
of  earth  that  should  belong  to  us  all. 

"  I  want  merely  justice. 

"If  my  competitor  is  better  equipped  by  nature  for  the 
struggle  than  I  am,  or  if  he  be  more  fortunate  under  fair 
opportunities,  I  regret  my  deficiency  and  my  bad  luck; 
but  I  must  acknowledge  that,  under  such  circumstances, 
if  injustice  exists,  it  is  in  the  laws  of  nature,  whereby  some 
men  are  made  stronger  and  some  better  than  others,  and 
not  in  the  laws  of  man.  He  who  wins  in  a  fair  struggle 
of  this  kind  is  entitled  to  the  rewards  of  victory." 

The  motto  of  men  engaged  in  competition  is  :  "  Devil 
take  the  hindmost !  "  It  is  a  sad  condition  for  the  weak- 
lings and  a  cruelly  wasteful  condition  for  all. 

It  would  seem  that  men  are  nearly  good  enough  and 
wise  enough  to  provide  a  better  system  of  human  e'ffort 
and  social  order,  but,  nevertheless,  competition  remains. 
During  the  progress  of  any  generation,  the  energetic,  the 
far-seeing,  the  frugal,  and  the  fortunate  man  accumulates 
a  certain  degree  of  wealth. 

His  idle,  wasteful,  improvident  or  unfortunate  neighbor 
may  or  may  not  have  enjoyed  a  more  comfortable  exist- 
ence, but  he  lives  from  hand  to  mouth  and  dies  without 
a  penny. 

Humanity  recognizes  this  result  under  competition  as 
being  just  and  quotes  the  admonition  :  "He  who  doth  not 


KING   MAMMON.  51 

sow,  neither  shall  he  reap."  Men  of  phenomenal  sa- 
gacity, whose  entire  life  efforts  are  devoted  to  money- 
making,  sometimes  accumulate  immense  fortunes.  Their 
methods  are  frequently  rapacious  and  unscrupulous,  if  not 
positively  dishonest ;  but,  so  long  as  their  acts  are  not 
illegal,  society  consents  and  even  applauds,  for  millions 
of  poorer  men  would  do  the  same  things,  if  they  could, 
to  earn  money,  and  society  can  never  be  any  better  or 
wiser  than  the  units  that  compose  it. 

When,  however,  it  is  well  understood  that  a  man's 
actual  production  of  wealth  in  an  ordinary  lifetime  cannot 
amount  to  more  than  the  value  of  a  few  thousands  of  dol- 
lars beyond  what  he  consumes,  as  statistics  based  upon 
the  surplus  wealth  of  society  will  prove,  and  when  it  is 
quite  positive  that  his  actual  wealth  production  cannot 
even  remotely  approach  the  vast  fortunes  of  from  twenty 
to  sixty  millions  of  dollars  that  have  been  frequently 
aggregated  within  recent  years,  the  exact  justice  of  this 
kind  of  success  may  be  questioned. 

Its  justice  will  not  be  disputed  here,  however,  for  such 
phenomenally  rapid  wealth  accumulation  is  due  more  to 
defective  morality  and  to  defective  laws  of  other  kinds 
than  to  the  evil  principles  that  have  been  selected  for  in- 
vestigation. 

We  are  now  considering  the  opportunities  in  general 
that  men  have  for  success,  and  not  the  special  energy, 
skill,  or  chicanery  by  which  some  succeed  at  the  expense 
of  others  ;  so,  for  the  present  we  will  admit  that  society 
is  right  when  it  applauds  the  success  of  a  man  who  has 
heaped  up  millions  of  dollars,  evidently  at  the  expense 
and  loss  of  his  associates.1 

1  Ruskin's  classification  of  the  qualities  that  make  and  lose  wealth  is 
more  comprehensive  and  less  favorable  to  the  usual  argument  indors- 
ing our  existing  conditions.  He  says  :  "  In  a  community  regulated  only 
by  laws  of  demand  and  supply,  and  protected  from  open  violence,  the 
persons  who  become  rich  are,  generally  speaking,  industrious,  resolute, 


52  KING   MAMMON. 

We  will  consider  that  any  man  is  entitled  to  all  the 
success  he  can  achieve,  no  matter  how  great,  provided 
he  does  not  actually  violate  our  laws,  and  we  will  call 
that  success  competitive  justice.  Compared  with  a 
humbler  struggle,  this  success  is  like  that  of  a  trotting 
horse  which  is  in  some  mysterious  manner  transferred 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of.  a  mile  track  in  one  second 
of  time.  Everybody  familiar  with  horses  and  mile  tracks 
knows  that  a  trick  has  been  perpetrated  and  that  the  horse 
never  honestly  won  ;  everybody  conversant  with  men  and 
money  knows  that  millionaires  like  Jay  Gould  never  justly 
and  equitably  acquired  their  fortunes  ;  but  the  defects 
that  cause  these  evils  are  mainly  in  speculative  human 
nature  and  not  in  laws  under  which  other  men  had  the 
same  opportunity  to  accomplish  what  Gould  did,  if  they 
had  possessed  the  requisite  shrewdness,  so,  for  the  sake 
of  concentrating  attention  on  the  essential  wrong  that  is 
now  being  attacked,  the  lesser  wrongs  of  bad  government 
based  on  weak  humanity,  which  permits  the  existence  of 
gigantic  gambling  operations  under  the  name  of  specula- 
tion, will  be  ignored. 

Let  Jay  Gould,  then,  as  the  type  of  many  of  his  class, 
both  dead  and  living,  retain  his  wealth.  Honestly  or  dis- 
honestly, it  was  acquired  under  fair  competition,  for  its 
possessor  was  poor  when  he  began  the  struggle  and  a 
multi-millionaire  when  it  terminated.  If  other  men  gam- 
bled with  Gould  and  were  beaten,  they  are  mere  whining 
novices  to  complain.  If  he  swindled  his  associates,  they 

proud,  covetous,  prompt,  methodical,  sensible,  unimaginative,  insensi- 
tive and  ignorant.  The  persons  who  remain  poor  are  the  entirely  fool- 
ish, the  entirely  wise,  the  idle,  the  reckless,  the  humble,  the  thoughtful, 
the  dull,  the  imaginative,  the  sensitive,  the  well-informed,  the  improvi- 
dent, the  irregularly  and  impulsively  wicked,  the  clumsy  knave,  the  open 
thief,  and  the  entirely  merciful,  just  and  godly  person."  The  author 
might  well  have  added  among  the  causes  which  produce  riches,  the  one 
which  made  him  wealthy,  that  is,  the  accidental  possession  of  a  rich 
father. 


KING   MAMMON.  53 

should  have  jailed  him  ;  but  if  they  neglected  to  enforce 
laws  against  crime,  they  have  no  right  to  complain 
because  criminals  become  wealthy.  Under  competition 
some  men  will  achieve  success  by  exchanging  property 
and  overreaching  their  fellows,  while  others  will  lose  in 
making  the  same  efforts.  The  result  is  not  injustice  where 
men  consent  to  such  exchanges,  as  all  do  in  life,  and  suc- 
cess is  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Misery  and  suffering  of 
all  kinds  result  from  the  struggle,  but  that  is  on  account 
of  the  system  of  life-effort  under  which  we  exist.  It  is 
because  men  fight  instead  of  help  one  another.  They 
hunt  their  game  competitively  instead  of  co-operatively. 
If  all  of  us  unite  in  accepting  our  motto  of  "Devil  take 
the  hindmost,"  nobody  must  object  if  that  industrious  per- 
sonage reaches  out  occasionally  to  seize  some  unlucky 
straggler ;  for  it  is  the  straggler's  own  fault  or  his  own 
misfortune  when  he  falls  behind.  Society  at  present  will 
not  complain  seriously  of  a  Jay  Gould  because  he  is  in  the 
front  ranks  of  its  financial  army,  for  he  worked  his  way  to 
the  front  by  his  own  persistent  efforts,  and  had  no  better 
opportunities  than  other  men  at  the  beginning,  nor  desires 
more  greedy  than  those  of  the  average  man.  Equal 
wealth,  or  even  approximately  equal  wealth,  under  life- 
competition  is  not  possible,  and  it  would  not  be  just  even 
if  it  were  possible  ;  for  men  must  and  should  receive  re- 
wards for  great  effort  and  great  ability,  and  they  are 
entitled  to  whatever  good  fortune  falls  to  their  lot.  In- 
equality is  the  morality  of  competition. 

Equality  of  wealth,  however,  and  equality  of  opportu- 
nity in  the  struggle  to  secure  wealth,  are  two  different 
things.  Equality  of  wealth  is  a  bauble  that  men  would 
fling  away  even  if  they  possessed  it.  Equality  of  oppor- 
tunity is  a  priceless  treasure  that  men  will  fight  and  die  for 
if  they  do  not  receive  it  freely.  Under  the  competitive 
system,  before  any  man  can  justly  claim  equal  wealth, 


54  KING   MAMMON. 

he  must  prove,  at  least,  that  he  makes  equal  effort  with 
other  men,  even  if  we  consider  that  justice  requires  us  to 
leave  out  of  consideration  all  natural  difference  of  ability 
between  contestants,  and  to  accept  the  charitable  theory 
that  all  men  who  make  equal  effort  should  receive  equal 
reward,  no  matter  what  variations  in  productive  power 
exist.  It  is  obvious  that  men  do  not  make  equal  efforts 
for  pecuniary  success  in  life,  and,  therefore,  until  a  co- 
operative system  can  be  evolved  that  will  satisfy  human- 
ity and  supersede  competition,  there  can  be  no  near  ap- 
proach to  equality  of  wealth.  Equality  of  opportunity, 
however,  is  merely  an  expression  of  fair  conditions  that 
ought  to  exist  in  every  contest,  no  matter  whether  it  be  a 
game  of  marbles  between  schoolboys,  a  fight  between 
pugilists,  or  the  struggle  of  life  under  competition.  The 
nature  of  social  relations  is  embodied  in  the  declaration 
that  equal  wealth  is  absolutely  inconsistent  with  competi- 
tion for  wealth,  but  that  competition  for  wealth  is  abso- 
lutely inconsistent  with  justice  without  equal  opportuni- 
ties. Let  us  see  whether  equal  opportunities  really  exist. 
Our  typical  Jay  Gould  has  joined  the  great  majority 
beyond  the  dark  river,  and  his  fortune  remains  on  earth, 
bequeathed  entirely,  we  will  assume,  to  two  sons,  although 
his  family  was  really  larger.  The  effort  and  ability  that 
were  exerted  in  the  accumulation  of  that  fortune  did  not 
emanate  from  these  young  men,  but  did  emanate  from 
Jay  Gould,  who  is  now  dead,  who  is  affected  in  no  way 
by  the  affairs  of  earth,  and  who,  consequently,  retains  no 
earthly  rights  and  no  claims  whatever  to  the  direction  or 
distribution  of  the  fortune.  When  the  young  men  re- 
ceived this  wealth  they  became  its  possessors,  but  not  its 
producers.  They  were  not  even  accumulators.  Beyond 
whatever  assistance  they  may  have  given  Jay  Gould  in 
acquiring  it,  they  had  absolutely  no  natural  rights  of  pos- 
session, except  the  eaual  right  of  all  associated  with  them 


KING   MAMMON.  55 

under  the  same  government  ;  for  a  special  right  can  be 
justly  acquired  only  by  production,  or,  at  most,  by  ac- 
cumulation through  self-effort.  At  the  same  time  these 
heirs  were  born,  perhaps  a  thousand  other  infants  saw 
the  light  for  the  first  time  within  a  limited  territory  sur- 
rounding these  favorites  of  unjust  law,  and  they  inherit 
nothing  but  two  hands  each  and  the  strength  to  use  them. 
Under  the  theory  of  competition,  all  must  seek  their  sub- 
sistence and  produce  wealth.  Justice  demands  that  they 
shall  have  "a  fair  field  and  no  favors  ;  "  but  are  such  equi- 
table conditions  bestowed  upon  these  competitors  ?  With 
the  millions  of  inherited  wealth,  which  the  two  heirs  have 
not  produced  any  more  than  have  the  thousand  youths 
who  inherit  nothing,  the  fortunate  successors  can  buy 
millions  of  acres  of  the  most  productive  land,  in  which 
every  one  of  the  thousand  youths  should  have  a  natural 
inheritance,  and  thereafter  the  two  may  say  :  "We  own 
the  earth — at  least  a  very  large  slice  of  it — and  if  you 
paupers  wish  to  exist  on  it,  pay  us  tribute."  The  tribute 
is  paid  in  the  form  of  rent,  and  the  thousand  men  serve 
the  two  and  maintain  them  in  idleness  and  luxury,  if  that 
life  be  their  choice. 

The  two  heirs  may  buy  bonds  of  the  United  States  with 
the  millions  they  gained  without  effort,  and  thereafter 
reap  a  princely  income  from  the  mere  interest,  while 
every  one  of  the  65,000,000  of  people  in  the  country  con- 
sents to  place  under  the  absolute  control  of  two  men  a 
large  body  of  wealth  that  should  rightfully  be  the  heritage 
of  all.  When  these  conditions  are  plainly  before  our  eyes 
on  every  hand,  can  we  truthfully  say  that  our  govern- 
ment is  just,  that  it  is  based  on  equal  rights,  and  that  we 
are  giving  to  all  our  people  fair  opportunities  ?  I  think 
not.  It  is  always  difficult  to  deal  exact  justice,  but  it 
seems,  in  the  first  place,  that  Jay  Gould  should  have  had 
no  power  to  designate  any  heirs.  It  is  enough  to  permit 


56  KING   MAMMON. 

individual  control  of  so  vast  a  fortune  during  one  lifetime 
without  extending  the  wealth-domination  into  another. 
In  the  second  place,  the  total  amount  of  specially  in- 
heritable wealth  should  be  limited,  either  by  a  percent- 
age of  the  fortune  or  by  a  fixed  amount  as  a  maximum, 
and  within  that  limit  the  courts  should  have  set  over  to 
each  person  who  could  show  any  real  claims  upon  the 
estate  as  successor,  an  amount  also  limited  by  a  maximum. 
Nearly  all  of  the  vast  estate  should  have  gone  into  the 
public  treasuries  as  inheritance  to  all  survivors  to  be 
apportioned  by  lessening  taxation  upon  them,  and  thus 
serving  as  a  reward  and  stimulus  to  genuine  competition. 
Under  such  conditions,  Jay  Gould's  sons,  instead  of  be- 
coming either  money-tyrants  or  luxurious  idlers,  would 
be  launched  into  life  with  a  small  but  equitable  financial 
assistance,  and,  therefore,  they  would  become  genuine 
instead  of  purely  fictitious  competitors,  and  carve  their 
own  way  in  the  world  or  fail  in  the  attempt,  like  other 
people,  without  the  unfair  assistance  of  another  man's  ac- 
cumulation. If  we  are  to  compete  in  life,  let  us  have  fair 
competition. 

No  matter  what  form  we  suppose  the  wealth  represented 
by  fifty  millions  of  dollars  to  take,  let  it  be  land,  bonds, 
machinery,  or  railroads,  it  is  always  a  tremendous  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  possessor.  The  fact  that  a  man  pos- 
sessing very  moderate  wealth,  provided  he  handles  it 
judiciously,  need  never  labor  a  day  in  his  lifetime,  is  one 
of  the  most  common  evidences  of  its  power.  Giving  a 
few  heirs  fifty  millions  of  dollars  and  then  putting  them 
into  competition  with  a  thousand  other  human  beings 
having  nothing  is  like  compelling  the  multitude  to  fight 
with  naked  fists  against  one  another  and  against  the 
favored  few  armed  with  Catling  guns.  It  is  an  unjust 
condition,  because  it  compels  unarmed  men  to  struggle 
against  others  to  whom  society  has  given  arms  and  armor 


KING   MAMMON.  57 

for  the  fray.  If  life  is  to  be  a  battle,  let  us  all  enter  the 
arena  with  advantages  and  oppoitunities  as  nearly  equal 
as  it  is  possible  for  human  laws  to  make  them. 

It  is  not  right,  nor  is  it  fair,  to  give  to  one  man  a  Win- 
chester rifle,  to  another  a  child's  tin  sword,  as  weapons, 
and  then  compel  them  to  become  gladiators  in  an  unequal 
contest.  It  is  not  just,  in  the  race  for  prosperity,  to  con- 
struct for  one  man  a  railway  and  give  him  a  locomotive 
and  a  palace  car,  while  his  unfortunate  fellow-creature 
is  compelled  to  run  barefooted  over  a  rough  roadway 
strewn  with  broken  glass. 

Yet  these  things  are  what  society  does  whenever  it 
permits  unrestricted  succession  to  wealth.  The  inequali- 
ties of  nature  are  great  enough,  sad  enough,  bitter  enough, 
to  break  the  heart  of  despairing  man  without  his  bearing 
the  additional  injustice  of  artificial  discrimination. 

The  continuance  of  inheritance  under  the  present  laws 
and  the  neglect  of  the  disinherited  classes,  is  not  merely 
unjust  as  a  matter  of  abstract  investigation,  but,  like  all 
other  social  injustice,  it  is  a  very  great  danger  to  existing 
governments  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  United  States  during  the  last  thirty  years  has  been 
approaching  with  fearfully  rapid  progress  the  crisis  that, 
sooner  or  later,  invariably  arises  from  the  fossilization  of 
wealth  by  succession.  Several  pustules  indicate  the  de- 
velopment of  a  terrible  disease.  We  have  sweat-shops, 
Coxey  armies,  vast  railroad  strikes,  curses  upon  Pullmans, 
and  discontent  everywhere.  A  millionaire  has  been 
charged  with  saying,  "The  public  be  damned  !  "  In  the 
heat  of  the  railroad  strike  of  July,  1894,  thousands  of 
laborers  thought,  if  they  did  not  say,  "  Damn  the  gov- 
ernment !  "  The  United  States  government  is  seriously, 
if  absurdly,  charged  with  using  military  power  to  aid 
wealth  against  labor.  One  ordinarily  pacific  newspaper, 
during  the  great  strike  of  1894,  published  the  opinion 


58  KING   MAMMON. 

that  the  world  would  be  better  off  if  a  bullet  were  sent 
through  George  M.  Pullman's  heart.  A  "pillar  ''in  a 
western  church  remarked  that  if  he  could  have  his  way  he 
would  blow  open  with  dynamite  every  bank  in  the  city 
where  he  lived  and  distribute  the  money  among  the  poor. 
Such  incidents  are  only  straws,  but  thousands  of  them 
gathered  here  and  there  and  everywhere  among  the  surg- 
ing mass  of  humanity  that  forms  this  great  nation,  show 
which  way  the  tide  is  setting. 

The  laboring  classes  dread  the  establishment  of  a  money- 
power  such  as  already  exists  in  Europe,  where  serfs  and 
aristocrats  are  side  by  side,  and  they  will  fight  the  danger. 
The  laborers  and  farmers  are  restless  and  irritable,  and 
there  is  but  little  hope  of  avoiding  trouble,  except  by 
social  education  and  progress  before  it  is  too  late. 

Two  of  the  worst  tendencies  of  the  present  condition 
are,  on  the  one  hand,  the  debasement  and  corruption  of 
poor  men  as  citizens  and  voters,  and,  on  the  other,  the 
development  of  aristocratic  ideas  among  the  wealthy. 
The  poor  man  is  gradually  losing  that  brave  spirit  and 
independence  that  should  characterize  the  citizen  of  a 
republic.  He  realizes  that  in  wealth-power  he  is  a  mere 
cipher  compared  with  his  neighbor  who  is  high  in  the 
councils  of  King  Mammon.  "Money  rules,"  he  says, 
and  so  he  gives  up  the  effort  to  direct  legislation  by 
voting.  By  and  by,  when  his  patriotic  spirit  is  entirely 
gone,  he  will  sell  his  vote  for  a  few  dollars,  because  he 
thinks  it  is  a  valueless  commodity  to  him,  and  useless  as 
a  means  to  control  or  resist  the  power  of  wealth.  This 
is  the  inevitable  result  of  comparative  poverty  surrounding 
great  wealth.  Unless  the  lower  classes  are  raised  above 
debasing  influences,  their  condition  steadily  becomes 
worse,  till  it  is  ripe  for  such  horrible  deeds  as  characterized 
the  bloody  French  Revolution.  At  the  other  end  of  the 
social  scale,  aristocracy  develops  with  the  pride  of 


KING   MAMMON.  59 

birth,  social  rank,  and  riches.  The  son  who  inherits 
great  wealth  and  who  receives  it  without  the  slightest 
personal  effort  is  not  to  blame  for  imagining  that 
he  must  be  better  than  the  common  herd  surrounding 
him.  Is  he  not  the  pampered  favorite  of  society  ?  Do 
not  all  men  decree  by  their  laws  that  he  may  live  in 
luxury  without  labor  and  that  other  men  shall  give  him 
service  and  subsistence?  The  man  who  commands 
every  luxury  without  effort,  and  who  sees  other  men 
toiling  patiently  to  secure  what  he  can  lavishly  throw 
away,  is  either  very  wise  or  very  foolish  if  he  does  not 
conclude  from  the  evidences  before  him  in  the  treatment 
which  he  receives  from  his  associates,  that  he  is  some- 
thing better  than  the  common  clay.  Ordinary  intellects 
under  such  circumstances  become  puffed  with  pride,  and 
all  the  essential  characteristics  of  an  aristocratic  class  de- 
velop as  soon  as  wealth  is  obtained  without  effort.  The 
man  who  makes  his  own  money  and  who  rises  from 
poverty  to  affluence,  be  it  ever  so  great,  never  becomes 
an  aristocrat,  for  he  always  retains  a  certain  amount  of 
sympathy,  even  if  he  be  hard-hearted  and  grasping,  for 
men  who  have  to  strive  as  he  did  in  laying  the  foundations 
of  his  fortune.  Aristocracy  and  the  contempt  of  wealth 
for  poverty  develop  only  with  inherited  fortunes,  and 
those  feelings  will  die  with  inheritance,  for  the  man  who 
has  had  to  accumulate  his  fortune  by  his  own  efforts  will 
never  sneer  at  another  man  who  is  compelled  to  do  the 
same  thing. 

The  daughters  of  wealthy  Americans  have  been  se- 
verely criticised  in  many  shallow  newspaper  articles  within 
the  past  ten  years  because  they  have  married  scions  of 
the  European  aristocracy,  and  thus  secured  titles. 

A  more  careful  consideration  of  the  subject  would  have 
proved  to  the  writers  that  these  young  women,  instead 
of  merely  making  an  effort  to  become  aristocrats  by  pur- 


60  KING   MAMMON. 

chasing  a  title,  as  the  editors  apparently  supposed,  were 
really  aristocrats  in  every  sense  of  the  word  before  they 
married  noblemen,  for  the  continued  possession  of  wealth 
by  inheritance  in  any  family  is  the  essence  of  aristoc- 
racy. 

The  daughters  of  our  millionaires  realize  that  all  they 
lack  as  aristocrats  is  merely  the  outward  distinction  or 
empty  title  to  set  off  their  position  from  the  lower  social 
ranks,  so  they  proceed  to  obtain  the  mere  emblem  of  a 
title  by  marriage  with  some  European  pauper  prince,  who 
is  in  pursuit  of  an  heiress  because  he  knows  that  a  title 
without  a  fortune  to  support  it  is  a  species  of  bogus  aris- 
tocracy only  comparable  to  the  one-sided  existence  por- 
trayed in  the  ancient  doggerel,  which  asserts  with  mock 
modesty  that  a  prince  without  a  principality  is 

"  Like  a  fork  without  a  knife, 
Like  a  man  without  a  wife, 
Like  a  ship  without  a  sail, 
Or  a  shirt  without — a  proper  length." 

The  heiress  knows  that  a  title  is  all  that  is  required  to 
put  her  on  a  plane  level  with  the  European  aristocrat,  so 
she  buys  the  appellation  of  "  My  Lady  "  in  foreign  lands, 
just  as  her  father  and  brothers  buy  legislation  and  political 
distinction  in  the  home  market. 

In  American  politics,  both  these  bad  tendencies,  toward 
an  aristocracy  of  wealth  on  the  one  hand,  and  toward 
a  degraded,  poverty-pinched  existence  on  the  other,  are 
readily  discernible,  in  spite  of  the  evident  and  undisputed 
fact  that  our  standard  of  living  and  our  rate  of  wages  have 
increased  in  the  last  fifty  years.  The  poor  man  feels  that 
he  can  do  little  in  politics  against  money,  so  he  loses  in- 
terest. If  a  thievish  proposition  is  made  to  appropriate 
public  funds,  he  thinks  that  because  he  pays  little  or  no 
taxes  it  cannot  injure  him  as  an  individual,  so  he  encour- 
ages governmental  waste  and  corruption,  regarding  every 


KING    MAMMON.  6 1 

attack  on  the  public  treasuries,  no  matter  how  nefarious, 
as  a  method  of  putting  money  into  circulation,  and  favor- 
ing it  because  some  of  the  money  may  reach  him  by 
affording  employment.  In  some  of  the  states  the  prisons 
are  not  self-supporting  because  the  laboring  classes  object 
to  what  they  call  the  competition  of  prison  labor,  and, 
therefore,  society  supports  the  convicts  in  idleness,  while 
they  might  be  compelled  to  earn  their  own  subsistence. 

The  laborers  are  -right,  however,  so  long  as  wealth  is 
so  unjustly  distributed;  but  with  a  more  equitable  appor- 
tionment, instead  of  objecting  to  prison  labor,  they  would 
feel  that  they  themselves  were  supporting  the  convicts  in 
idleness  by  taxation,  instead  of  compelling  somebody  else 
in  possession  of  the  wealth  to  do  so,  as  under  existing 
conditions. 

The  prevalence  of  these  ideas,  so  destructive  to  genuinely 
sound  government,  ought  to  be  enough  to  convince  any 
thinker  that  no  republic  can  long  endure  that  does  not 
remove  the  cause  of  such  unpatriotic  and  suicidal  conclu- 
sions and  efforts  among  the  masses.  The  idea  cannot  be 
too  positively  enunciated  that  our  government  cannot 
continue  as  a  democracy  when  our  people  become  divided 
into  permanent  classes  of  the  rich  and  the  poor.  While 
the  patriotism  of  the  laborer  is  thus  being  obliterated  by 
the  necessities  of  existence,  a  similiar  process  destroys  all 
love  of  country  in  the  rich  man's  mind.  The  millionaire 
either  enters  politics  predatorily  to  secure  what  legislation 
or  personal  distinction  he  desires,  or  else  he  ignores  legis- 
lation when  it  is  not  directly  to  his  interest  to  purchase 
it,  feeling  that  his  monopoly  of  wealth  is  so  great  that  he 
can  despise  ordinary  governmental  changes.  The  grad- 
ually developed  result  is  that  the  poverty-stricken 
wretches  of  the  lowest  grades  sell  their  votes,  and  the  rich 
buy  legislation  for  their  own  class  interests,  till  finally 
there  comes  a  day  when  men  revolt  and  grim  war  is 


62  KING   MAMMON. 

waged  to  readjust  unnatural  conditions  and  partially  re- 
store human  rights. 

The  fact  that  in  every  election  throughout  the  United 
States  the  employes  of  wealthy  men  and  wealthy  corpor- 
ations are  induced  to  vote  as  their  employers  may  direct ; 
that  votes  are  secured  and  controlled  by  thousands  among 
the  lower  classes  by  the  use  of  money,  often  being  bought 
outright  at  a  fixed  price  per  vote  ;  that  legislators  are 
bribed  by  money  and  official  advancement  ;  that  courts 
are  believed  to  be  in  many  instances  under  the  control 
and  dictation  of  wealth  ;  and  that,  however  wrongfully, 
thousands  of  voters  believe  that  the  financial  legislation 
of  Congress  is  dictated  by  wealthy  men,  shows  how  deeply 
the  cancer  is  eating  into  our  political  institutions,  and 
how  it  will  ultimately  destroy  them  unless  its  ravages 
are  checked.  Whenever  the  people  of  the  United  States 
believe  that  their  influence  as  voters  is  no  longer  felt  in 
legislation,  and  that  one  man  with  millions  can  control 
the  votes  of  thousands  who  have  no  money,  they  will 
begin  to  meditate  upon  the  power  of  numbers  and  brute 
strength,  and  whenever  the  bad  conditions  are  thoroughly 
developed,  they  will  proceed  to  shoot,  or  hang,  or  guillotine 
the  man  who  possesses  millions  and  appropriate  his  wealth 
to  pay  the  cost  of  civil  war. 

The  incipient  stages  of  this  condition  can  already  be 
observed  throughout  the  country,  when  men  say,  with  a 
bitter  contempt  for  the  politcal  institutions  that  once 
evoked  so  much  pride,  that  it  is  useless  to  vote  ;  that  no 
matter  what  party  is  in  power,  the  money  and  the  political 
bosses  rule  ;  that  honest  legislation  for  the  interests  of  the 
people  in  general  cannot  be  obtained  ;  and  that,  if  changes 
be  made,  a  new  set  of  plunderers  will  be  more  rapacious 
than  the  old  set,  for  the  latter  have  been  partially  satiated. 

Of  course  these  political  evils,  so  far  as  they  now  exist, 
are  exaggerated  by  .the  discontented  citizens,  and  many 


KING   MAMMON.  63 

of  them,  by  permitting  purely  imaginary  evils  to  seem  real 
to  them,  become  what  are  known  as  "  calamity  howlers, " 
who  live,  apparently,  in  chronic  dread  of  immediate  dis- 
aster, and  who  believe  that  nearly  every  man  in  public 
life  is  a  thief. 

Little  sympathy  need  be  expressed  for  this  class  of  men, 
for  they  reflect  upon  social  problems  no  more  seriously 
than  their  careless,  light-hearted  associates,  who  never 
apprehend  a  danger  till  it  is  upon  them. 

Faith  should  exist  in  the  vigorous  intellect  and  progres- 
sive power  that  characterize  the  American  people. 

It  is  probable,  even  if  our  people  neglect  the  problem 
of  wealth-adjustment  so  long  that  civil  war  is  inevitable, 
that  they  will,  nevertheless,  carry  the  banner  of  equal 
rights  triumphantly  through  the  struggle,  as  they  did 
through  the  great  rebellion,  and  maintain  the  great  good 
that  already  exists  in  our  political  institutions,  which, 
after  all  that  can  be  said  in  denunciation,  are,  nevertheless, 
in  advance  of  those  still  maintained  by  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

There  is  real  danger  ahead,  however,  for  the  young 
social  giant  of  the  western  world,  born  amid  the  stormy 
times  of  1776. 

The  wealth-child,  tossed  upon  his  shoulders  in  the 
happy  pride  of  conscious  strength,  has  become  an  Old  Man 
of  the  Sea  in  his  latter  progress,  while  around  his  feet  the 
slimy,  threatening,  poisonous  reptiles  of  want  and  degrada- 
tion threaten  to  overwhelm  him  should  he  sink  beneath 
the  increasing  burden  that  he  bears. 

Do  the  people  of  the  United  States  realize  the  dangers 
to  our  great  republic  that  exist  when  want  and  misery  see 
unmerited  wealth  and  luxury  easily  within  their  grasp  ? 
Let  our  people  hearken  to  the  discontent. 


64  KING   MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  WORSHIP  OF  OUR   ANCESTORS. 

"  Three  deceased  ancestors  must  be  -worshipped,  three  must  be  reverenced 
before  the  rest.  These  three  ancestors  of  a  man  may  claim  the  discharge  of 
their  twofold  debt  from  the  fourth  in  descent"— -INSTITUTES  OF  NARADA. 

NOTHING  but  the  realization  of  what  are  now  merely  the 
socialistic  dreams  of  idealists  can  ever  accomplish  abso- 
lute equality  of  wealth  in  society,  and  nothing  is  further 
from  the  intention  of  the  writer  than  the  idea  of  urging 
plans  that  would  only  seem  visionary  and  impractical  to 
the  great  body  of  our  population.  No  matter  how  ideally 
perfect  the  social  creations  of  Edward  Bellamy  and  kindred 
souls,  existing  since  the  days  when  Utopia  was  revealed 
to  and  ridiculed  by  slowly  progressing  humanity,  may 
appear  to  certain  minds  impressed  by  the  vast  economy 
of  co-operation,  the  actual  realization  of  those  ideals  lies 
far  in  the  future — how  far,  we  can  only  guess.  The 
progress  of  civilization  apparently  tends  in  that  direction, 
but  in  all  social  evolution  there  is  a  slow  and  painful  ad- 
vance, step  by  step,  sometimes  backward,  but  eventually 
in  the  direction  toward  which  the  forces  developed  by 
nature  tend  to  drive  men.  These  forces  now  appear 
ready  to  impel  the  human  race  out  of  the  fiercest  warfare 
of  competition  into  the  more  peaceful  methods  of  co-op- 
eration, but  between  the  two  conditions  lies  an  unknown 
waste  of  dangerous  pitfalls  and  obstructions  that  humanity 
at  its  first  attempt  may  not  surmount.  If  society  ever 
reaches  the  other  side,  it  will  be  by  the  careful  avoidance 
of  those  pitfalls,  one  by  one,  and  by  the  attack  of  each 
obstacle  singly.  There  will  be  no  marvelous  transition 


KING   MAMMON.  65 

to  a  promised  land,  and  if  we  ever  accomplish  general 
co-operation  it  will  be  by  the  slow,  successive  stages  by 
which  all  social  development  is  effected.  With  the  ad- 
vocacy of  theories  of  social  co-operation,  therefore,  this 
consideration  of  social  growth  will  have  nothing  to  do  at 
present.  We  need  some  modification  in  our  laws  that 
will  serve  as  a  link  in  the  chain  of  evolution  by  which  the 
human  race  is  to  ascend  to  higher  levels — something  that 
appeals  to  practical  men — something  that  is  feasible  to- 
day. In  suggesting  modifications  in  our  laws  as  remedies 
for  social  evils,  the  test  of  justice  will  be  invited,  and  it 
will  be  demanded  also,  that  justice  shall  be  the  test  of 
social  institutions  as  they  now  exist.  Mere  imaginary 
expediency  can  never  be  a  safe  guide  in  formulating  laws, 
for  the  history  of  the  human  race  shows  that  a  general 
conception  of  justice  is  the  only  permanent  basis  for 
maintaining  an  agreement  between  men.  Invoking 
justice,  it  cannot  be  maintained,  for  instance,  that  William 
Waldorf  Astor  should  be  the  owner  of  a  fortune  supposed 
to  be  worth  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  which  he 
never  produced  and  never  even  accumulated  by  any 
effort  of  his  own,  and  that  John  Smith,  a  worthy  but 
penniless  gentleman  of  the  same  city  of  New  York,  who 
has  apparently  equal  claims  upon  that  amount  of  prop- 
perty  in  having  done  nothing  whatever  to  acquire  it, 
should  possess  absolutely  nothing,  and,  besides  that  un- 
fortunate condition,  should  not  have  even  a  fair  oppor- 
tunity to  acquire  wealth.  Dame  Nature's  laws  in  some 
instances  do  not  appear  to  be  just  any  more  than  those  of 
man,  but  this  particular  iniquity  is  not  hers.  The  fowls 
of  the  air  and  the  beasts  of  the  forest  seek  their  subsist- 
ence and  their  comfort  unfettered  by  such  conditions. 
Each  takes  from  the  hand  of  Nature  what  the  season  pro- 
vides, and  all  receive  exactly  the  same  opportunities  for 
"life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  They  have 
5 


66  KING   MAMMON. 

equal  access  to  the  benefits  of  life,  and  equal  exposure  to 
its  reverses.  Man  in  a  purely  savage  state  is  unfettered,  like 
the  lower  animals.  No  one  monopolizes  his  surrounding 
territory  or  its  wealth.  Save  for  the  penalties  of  savage 
warfare,  he  is  free  from  tribute,  and  in  the  wild  existence 
of  the  woods  and  plains  he  captures  game  and  gathers 
berries  without  paying  over  a  portion  to  any  lord  of  the 
realm.  In  such  a  life  no  man  pays  rent  for  the  privilege 
of  existence  to  another  man  whose  life-work  has  not  been 
a  development  of  the  wealth  he  claims;  but  this  is  not 
true  of  our  boasted  civilization  and  liberty  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  It  is  undeniable  that  the  peaceful  ex- 
istence of  the  savage,  as  distinguished  from  his  warfare, 
is  blessed  with  more  of  justice  and  equal  rights  than  our 
present  civilization  can  bestow,  so  far  as  the  rights  to 
property  are  concerned.  All  savages  had,  or  could  have 
had,  enough  for  comfort  without  unremitting  toil ;  but  all 
who  exist  in  London  or  New  York  to-day  cannot  secure 
comfort  even  with  constant  toil,  nor  can  they  secure  op- 
portunities to  work  when  they  desire.  The  records  of  the 
sweating  system  and  the  condition  of  tenement  houses 
abundantly  noted  in  recent  publications  is  evidence  of 
the  wide  existence  of  a  condition  like  that  described  in 
the  following  paragraph  from  a  report  of  the  New  York 
Sanitary  Aid  Society  on  conditions  in  the  Eleventh 
Precinct  : 

"The  investigations  reveal  a  state  of  affairs  than 
which  nothing  more  horrible  can  be  imagined,  and  which, 
although  perhaps  equaled,  cannot  be  surpassed  in  any 
European  city.  To  get  into  these  pestilential  human 
rookeries  you  have  to  penetrate  courts  and  alleys  reeking 
with  poisonous  and  malodorous  gases  arising  from  accu- 
mulations of  sewage  and  refuse  scattered  in  all  directions 
and  often  flowing  beneath  your  feet.  You  have  to  ascend 
rotten  staircases  which  threaten  to  give  way  beneath 
every  step,  which  in  some  cases  have  already  broken 


KING   MAMMON.  67 

down,  leaving  gaps  that  imperil  the  limbs  and  lives  of  the 
unwary.  Walls  and  ceilings  are  black  with  the  accretions 
of  filth  which  have  gathered  upon  them  through  long 
years  of  neglect.  It  exudes  through  cracks  in  the  boards 
overhead  and  runs  down  the  walls  ;  it  is  everywhere. 

"The  rooms  are  crowded  with  sick  and  dirty  children. 
Often  several  families  occupy  the  same  apartment.  One 
of  the  inspectors  reports  twenty-five  persons  in  three  so- 
called  rooms,  of  which  two  are  mere  closets  without  win- 
dows or  openings  to  the  hall.  Here  is  a  family  of  father, 
mother,  and  four  children,  taking  in  fourteen  boarders  and 
living  in  three  rooms.  There  are  fifteen  people  of  all 
sexes  and  ages  in  two  little  rooms,  a  great  portion  of 
which  is  in  addition  taken  up  with  old  rags  and  refuse. 
One  of  the  directors  discovered  parents,  three  children, 
and  fifteen  geese  living  in  a  filthy  cellar.  Another  visited 
a  room  which  had  actually  not  been  cleaned  or  white- 
washed for  five  years,  where  the  ceiling  was  tumbling 
down  in  pieces,  one  of  the  children  being  in  bed  from 
severe  wounds  on  the  face  and  shoulder  inflicted  by  the 
falling  plaster.  Here  were  found  a  woman  and  five  small 
children  who  were  actually  starving,  having  eaten  nothing 
for  two  days  ;  there  a  woman  but  two  days  after  confine- 
ment being  ejected  by  an  inhuman  landlord." 

Neither  this  description  of  the  condition  of  some  of 
those  who  do  not  accidentally  happen  to  own  a  hundred 
millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  property,  nor  the  following 
from  a  writer  in  the  Chicago  Tribune  of  January  i,  1893, 
is  likely  to  convince  many  people  that  opportunites  for 
existence  are  being  equalized  under  civilization  : 

"  About  five  minutes'  walk  from  the  city  hall  in  New 
York  is  the  most  densely-populated  section  of  the  earth. 
From  225,000  to  500,000  people  to  the  square  mile  are 
packed  in  tenement  houses  which  cover  from  sixty  to 
ninety  percent  of  the  ground  space  in  each  block.  There 
are  not  only  the  four  and  five-story  houses  fronting  the 
street,  but  another  row  built  inside  the  first  and  separated 
from  it  by  a  few  feet,  then  in  the  middle  space  another 
square  building  packed  with  humanity  from  top  to  bottom. 


68  KING   MAMMON. 

Within  the  area  of  Mulberry,  Hester,  Baxter,  Canal,  Lud- 
low,  Essex,  and  East  Broadway  streets  are  hundreds  of 
sweat-shops.  Not  only  the  coarser  goods,  but  the  finer 
grades  of  women's  underwear,  cloaks,  and  men's  clothing 
are  made  there. 

"  That  underwear  which  you  buy  so  much  cheaper  than 
you  could  make  it  at  home,  probably  comes  from  a  sweat- 
shop, and  could  you  see  the  conditions  under  which  it  is 
made,  you  would  shudder  at  the  bare  thought  of  having 
it  touch  your  skin,  That  ready-made  suit  which  seems 
so  cheap  and  pretty,  probably  served  as  a  bed  for  the 
filthy,  diseased  wretches  who  made  it.  I  know  that  rep- 
utable firms  deny  that  their  goods  are  made  by  sweaters. 
The  wholesale  firms  in  New  York  are  insulted  at  the  bare 
imputation  of  such  a  thing  ;  yet  they  admit  that  the  work 
is  given  to  contractors,  and  they  don't  know  where  it  is 
done.  I  found  those  same  contractors  running  sweat- 
shops in  Essex  and  Baxter  streets.  Under  the  impression 
that  our  guide  was  a  boss  himself  they  told  him  what 
firms  they  worked  for  and  where  contracts  could  be  ob- 
tained. One  of  the  worst  places  visited  was  a  fourth- 
story  attic,  where  six  men  and  two  women  lived  and 
worked.  They  were  making  coats  for  a  firm  which  has 
branch  houses  in  Minneapolis  and  in  every  city  of  any 
size  in  the  country. 

"Nearly  all  of  the  tenements  are  four  or  five  stories 
high.  The  ground  floor  of  the  outer  building  will  be  oc- 
cupied by  a  store  of  some  sort.  The  other  floors  have  four 
flats  on  each  floor  and  two  rooms  to  each  flat.  The  outer 
room  is  ten  by  twelve  and  has  two  windows.  The  inner 
room  has  no  window,  and  measures  four  by  six.  In  a 
two-room  flat  of  this  sort  it  is  a  common  thing  for  six  or 
eight  grown  people  to  live  and  work,  not  to  mention  an 
average  of  four  or  five  children  to  every  family.  These 
buildings,  facing  the  street,  get  some  sunlight  and  such 
air  as  filters  down  the  crowded  streets. 

"Then  remember  that  back  of  this  outer  building  is 
always  one  and  sometimes  two  inner  buildings.  In  these 
inner  buildings  people  actually  live  and  work  and  rear  chil- 
dren without  seeing  daylight  from  one  end  of  the  year  to  the 
other.  They  keep  lamps  burning  all  day.  A  faint  twi- 
light on  a  summer's  day  is  the  nearest  approach  to  day- 


KING  MAMMON.  69 

light  that  their  habitation  ever  knows.  One  water  faucet 
and  waste  pipe  in  the  hall  does  service  for  every  four 
families.  The  closets  are  always  in  the  crowded  court- 
yard, and  all  fuel  must  be  carried  up  by  hand. 

"  In  the  two  days  and  a  half  we  visited  fifty-eight  build- 
ings and  saw  the  dwelling  places  of  more  than  a  thousand 
families.  Breathing  the  foul  air,  in  addition  to  the  physical 
exertion  involved  in  climbing  and  descending  five-story 
buildings,  left  me  in  a  state  of  prostration  from  which  I 
did  not  recover  for  several  days.  After  it  was  over  I 
understood  better  -why  no  woman  and  but  few  men  had 
ever  made  anything  like  a  thorough  investigation  of  the 
system.  Filth  and  wretchedness,  the  desperate  struggle 
for  existence,  and  the  absolute  lack  of  anything  approach- 
ing home  life,  combine  to  make  a  picture  which  seems  to 
be  burned  into  the  memory  of  any  one  who  has  seen  it. 
The  little  children  are  the  most  pathetic  sight  of  all.  The 
bad  conditions,  instead  of  killing  out  the  race,  seem  only 
to  encourage  reproduction.  The  alleys,  courtyards,  cellars, 
and  streets  fairly  swarm  with  children. 

"  '  They  die  like  flies  in  the  summer  time/  said  our 
guide,  (  and  the  undertakers  make  special  rates  for  the 
summer  traffic  in  the  tenement  district.'" 

Such  destitution  as  these  writers  describe,  and  such  as 
every  one  familiar  with  great  cities  knows  to  exist,  is  not 
caused  by  any  general  lack  of  wealth  or  deficiency  of  pro- 
duction. 

Indeed,  the  saddest  fact  is  that  in  periods  of  depression, 
when  all  that  sustains  life  is  most  abundant  and  cheapest, 
there  is  always  the  greatest  suffering  among  the  poor  on 
account  of  the  scarcity  of  employment. 

Do  we  not  all  remember  the  industrial  armies  marching 
in  rags  toward  Washington,  and  propounding  to  their 
fellow-men  the  almost  unanswerable  enigmas  recorded  in 
the  following  lines  : 

"  Why  is  it  that  those  who  produce  food  are  hungry  ? 
Why  is  it  that  those  who  make  clothes  are  ragged?  Why 
is  it  that  those  who  build  palaces  are  houseless  ?  Why  is 


70  KING   MAMMON. 

it  that  those  who  do  the  nation's  work  are  forced  to  choose 
between  beggary,  crime,  or  suicide,  in  a  nation  that  has 
fertile  soil  enough  to  produce  plenty  to  feed  and  clothe 
the  world ;  material  enough  to  build  palaces  to  house 
them  all ;  and  productive  capacity,  through  labor-saving 
machinery,  of  forty  thousand  million  man-power,  and 
only  sixty-five  million  souls  to  feed,  clothe,  and 
shelter  ? " 


When  it  is  remembered  that  for  every  case  of  destitu- 
tion a  thousand  comforts  can  be  found  where  they  are 
not  needed,  such  inquiries  cannot  be  classed  as  imperti- 
nent. It  cannot  be  supposed  that  such  conditions  are 
caused  by  natural  laws,  nor  can  we  charge  that  they  are 
the  work  of  God. 

The  condition  is  not  a  new  one  ;  it  is  as  old  as  civiliza- 
tion. But  because  it  is  old,  shall  we,  therefore,  admit 
that  it  is  necessary  and  unavoidable  ? 

Slavery  was  older  than  history,  but  men  have  abandoned 
the  direct  form  of  it. 

Wife-ownership  existed  in  society  for  centuries,  but  it 
is  steadily  giving  way  to  better  family  conditions. 

The  extreme  power  and  tyranny  of  wealth,  and  the  ex- 
treme degradation  of  poverty,  have  always  been  a  feature 
in  the  history  of  the  race  since  wealth  was  accumulated  ; 
but  are  we  to  concede  that  men  become  no  better  and  no 
wiser  ?  We  need  to  scrutinize  our  own  habits  and  customs 
and  social  institutions. 

In  treating  of  this  subject,  its  nature  necessarily  compels 
a  writer  to  discuss  with  scant  reverence  what  are  termed 
the  "  sacred  rights  of  property." 

In  doing  so  the  reader  who  is  firmly  impressed  with 
the  idea  that  all  property  rights  and  transfers  are  justly 
established,  is  asked  to  withhold  his  conclusions  till  the 
wealth  problem  is  completely  discussed. 

Sometimes   we  believe  certain    things    and   do    other 


KING   MAMMON.  /I 

things,  merely  because  they  have  become  established  as 
customs. 

We  often  accept  religious  and  social  and  political  ideas 
in  this  way,  without  genuine  investigation,  merely  be- 
cause we  have  been  accustomed  to  them,  or  because 
our  early  associations  have  been  connected  with  them. 

How  frequently  does  the  boy  at  twenty-one  approve 
the  politics  of  his  father,  and  the  girl  at  eighteen  the 
religion  of  her  mother  !  Do  we  usually  make  a  careful 
and  thorough  investigation  of  the  nature  and  tendencies 
of  important  social  institutions,  or  do  we  accept  them  as 
having  been  tried  and  proved  by  our  predecessors  to  be 
the  best  possible  institutions  for  our  needs  ?  Many,  very 
many  of  us,  it  is  to  be  feared,  are  ultra-conservatives, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles  to  social  progress  is 
conservatism,  for  it  make  cowards  of  us  all. 

The  Houssa  negroes,  according  to  Herbert  Spencer's 
Sociology,  have  a  saying  that  is  an  appropriate  motto  for 
the  extreme  conservative.  It  is  "  Because  same  ting  do 
for  my  father,  same  ting  do  forme." 

The  intensely  conservative  man  thinks  that  what  is, 
must  be  ;  that  civilization  has  nearly  if  not  quite  reached 
its  complete  development ;  that  if  things  are  wrong  in 
a  few  particulars,  they  will  right  themselves  somehow  ; 
that  the  rich  may  be  too  rich,  but  there's  no  way  to  pre- 
vent great  riches  ;  that  the  poor  may  be  too  poor,  but  there 
will  always  be  poverty  ;  that  if  the  world  has  wagged  for 
centuries  under  such  conditions,  it  will  probably  continue 
.to  wag  ;  and  that  as  the  wealth  problem,  according  to  his 
conception,  does  not  concern  him  directly  (for  the  ultra- 
conservative  is  usually  neither  very  poor  nor  very  rich), 
he  would  rather  not  think  about  it. 

The  conservative  x  is  a  great  stickler  for  existing  law 

1  "  Human  beings,  like  patients,  would  rather  endure  well-known 
pains,  with  which  they  have  become  familiar,  than  take  the  chances  of 


?2  KING  MAMMON. 

and  order,  custom  and  precedent.  He  is  terrified  by  a 
proposition  to  make  a  radical  change  of  any  kind.  If  a 
new  law  is  to  be  enacted,  he  would  make  it  a  very  little 
at  a  time.  If  an  old  law  is  to  be  abolished,  he  would 
destroy  it  piecemeal.  If  his  grandfather  put  on  his  coat 
in  a  certain  way,  the  conservative  would  like  to  continue 
the  custom  in  the  family.  When  his  conservatism  is 
mingled  with  conventionality,  it  is  a  matter  of  very  great 
importance  with  him  to  wag  exactly  as  the  rest  of  the 
world  wags — only  a  little  behind  it.  If  his  neighbors  all 
go  to  bed  at  exactly  nine  o'clock,  he  deems  it  a  necessity 
for  him  to  do  precisely  the  same  thing,  and  he  would 
rather  be  dead  than  to  have  the  reputation  of  thinking  or 
saying  or  believing  anything  that  his  associates  consider 
queer. 

The  conservative  has  a  value  in  society,  and  imparts  to 
it  a  certain  desirable  stability,  but  he  is  not  the  stuff  out 
of  which  reformers  are  made,  and  but  little  can  be  said 
in  his  favor  when  a  change  in  social  institutions  is  needed, 
except  to  compare  him  to  a  brake  upon  the  wheels  of  the 
car  of  state  to  prevent  a  dangerous  rate  of  progress  over 
rough  ground.  When  his  conservatism  becomes  so  ex- 
treme that  he  will  not  listen  to  the  pleas  of  progres- 
sionists, and  when  he  persistently  turns  his  face  toward 
the  past  instead  of  the  future,  the  only  simile  that  ade- 
quately describes  him  is  the  rough  political  assertion  of 
some  of  our  campaigns,  that  he  resembles  "a  jackass 
hitched  the  wrong  way  between  the  shafts  of  a  cart,  and 
braying  denunciations  because  the  progressive  combina- 
tion is  not  a  success." 

The   conservative   worships    his   ancestors.      Perhaps 
he  does  not  do  so  consciously,   but  he  feels  a  perpetual 

a  first-rate  operation.  They  prefer  a  few  timid  efforts — and  those  at 
long  intervals,  slowly  attempted  and  deliberately  carried  out — to  secure 
their  recovery." — M.  REYBAUD. 


KING  MAMMON.  73 

reverence  for  whatever  is  well  established  or  time- 
honored,  and  a  corresponding  distrust  for  anything-  con- 
trary to  what  he  and  his  fathers  have  practiced.  If  he 
positively  knew,  as  the  popular  acceptation  supposes  the 
Darwinian  theory  to  assert,  that  his  remote  ancestor  was 
a  monkey,  the  ultra  conservative  would  immediately 
conclude  that  because  his  ancestor  was  ancient,  he  must', 
therefore,  have  been  a  very  respectable  monkey,  and 
perhaps  in  many  respects  superior  to  himself. 

Men  of  the  conservative  temperament  so  assiduously 
and  so  reverently  gaze  at  the  vanishing  past,  that  they 
tumble  helplessly  into  the  pitfalls  of  the  present.  We 
are  surrounded  by  these  dangers  now  ;  let  us  hope  that 
the  reverence  with  which  we  view  time-honored  insti- 
tutions will  not  blind  us  to  the  necessities  of  a  change. 
The  tools  and  the  fabrics  of  ancient  existence  are  not 
those  our  condition  now  demands.  We  have  outgrown 
many  customs  of  antiquity,  yet  still  some  of  them  linger. 
Our  wives  and  daughters  have  worn  jewels  in  their  ears, 
not  because  these  really  add  to  their  comfort  or  beauty, 
but  because  a  savage  ancestor,  somewhere  in  the  dark 
ages  before  history  was  written,  with  a  savage's  idea  of 
personal  adornment,  hung  rings  or  sticks  from  her  ears, 
and  the  custom  has  descended  to  the  ladies  who  still 
follow  it.  Is  it  not  probable,  therefore,  that  we  shall  find 
in  our  social  institutions  many  barbarous  customs  surviv- 
ing far  beyond  the  limits  to  which  they  should  have 
been  extended,  just  as  the  word  "obey,"  as  a  pledge  for 
the  wife,  has  been  retained  in  marriage  ceremonies  in 
significance  of  the  time  when  woman  was  absolutely 
man's  slave  ? 

Instead  of  worshiping  our  ancestors  and  the  social 
institutions  they  have  bequeathed  to  us,  after  the  fashion 
of  extreme  conservatism,  the  rational  course  in  justice  to 
ourselves  is  to  scrutinize  all  their  acts,  and  customs,  and 


74  KING   MAMMON. 

laws,  and  traditions  with  the  utmost  suspicion.  Without 
being  unduly  disrespectful  to  my  ancestors,  some  of 
whom  may  have  been  very  worthy  people,  I  must  say 
that,  although  I  have  no  personal  knowledge  of  their 
character  and  accomplishments,  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that,  in  general,  they  were  like  those  of  other 
people,  a  succession  of  brutal  savages,  whose  brutality 
increased  with  their  antiquity. 

Indeed,  we  have  very  little  real  reason  for  claiming 
that  we  are  civilized  at  the  present  moment,  for  civili- 
zation is  only  a  relative  condition.  We  have  some  reason 
for  thinking  that  we  are  not  quite  such  savage,  stupid 
beasts  as  Caribs,  for  instance ;  and  we  may  feel  certain 
that  we  know  more  and  treat  one  another  more  justly 
than  did  our  forefathers  a  thousand  years  ago  ;  but 
whether  we  are  now  really  civilized  or  not — that  is  the 
question. 

On  that  particular  feature  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
what  will  the  people  two  thousand  years  later  think  and 
write  concerning  us  ?  Will  they  classify  us  as  barbarians, 
or  between  the  two  eras  will  there  intervene  a  period  of 
social  degeneration  and  a  rise  from  which  the  people  of 
the  year  4000  will  regard  our  condition  as  an  ancient 
civilization  rivaling  their  own  ?  It  is  useless  to  speculate 
on  the  dim  future,  but  we  know  at  least  this  much  : 
Our  social  institutions  are  continually  changing,  and  they 
are  no  more  stable  now  than  they  were  five  hundred 
years  ago  when  our  half-barbarous  forefathers  existed,  or 
when,  before  the  dawn  of  history,  their  ancestors  lived  in 
caves  and  chased  the  mammoth.  Our  civilization  is  not 
yet  effected,  and  we  are  not  really  civilized  in  the  sense 
that  civilization  is  complete,  but  only  in  the  sense  that 
we  have  progressed  from  the  condition  of  our  ancestors, 
have  learned  many  things  which  they  did  not  know, 
have  demanded  many  things  which  they  did  not  think 


KING   MAMMON.  75 

necessary,  and  have  abolished  as  unjust  many  practices 
which  they  did  not  think  wrong. 

Our  natural  condition  is  that  of  transition.  The  things 
that  we  may  approve  to-day,  our  successors  may  de- 
nounce to-morrow,  and  he  who  seeks  to  maintain  by 
force  a  decaying  social  institution  against  the  natural 
forces  that  tend  to  destroy  it,  as  thousands  of  laws  and 
customs  have  already  been  destroyed  in  the  past,  is 
merely  endeavoring  unwittingly  to  inflict  upon  the  social 
structure  a  spasm  such  as  convulsed  this  country  when 
slavery  gave  way  before  advancing  thought. 

Do  not  forget  that,  if  our  savage  ancestor  l  was  like 
other  savages,  sometime  in  the  four  hundred  thousand 
years  of  man's  probable  occupancy  of  earth  he  was  a 
cannibal,  devouring  the  enemy  he  had  conquered  ;  he 
was  a  child-murderer,  destroying  his  own  offspring  lest 
its  existence  give  him  trouble  ;  he  was  a  parricide,  putting 
his  own  mother  to  death  when  the  infirmities  of  age 
interfered  with  her  usefulness. 

Under  the  same  progress  which  is  still  going  on,  he 
ceased  to  murder  his  family  and  to  eat  his  neighbors 
when  he  quarreled  with  them,  but  he,  nevertheless,  sold 
his  own  daughter  to  another  savage  for  a  slave,  obtained 
his  own  slave  wife  or  wives  in  the  same  way,  and  com- 
placently made  slaves  of  all  others  whom  he  could  sub- 
ject to  his  power,  possibly  because  it  was  more  profitable 
for  him  to  enjoy  the  results  of  their  servile  labor  than 
to  enjoy  their  cooked  flesh,  perhaps  because  he  became 
morally  better  then,  as  we  do  now.  As  a  religious 
savage,  he  conceived  it  his  duty  to  flay  a  captive  alive 
and  to  dance  before  his  deity  wrapped  in  the  bleeding 
skin  of  his  victim. 

In  the  arts  of  war  he  exulted  in  the  facility  with  which 
he  could  remove  the  heads  of  his  victims,  when  dead,  and 

1  Herbert  Spencer's  "  Principles  of  Sociology." 


76  KING  MAMMON. 

eventually,  as  a  matter  of  convenience  to  himself,  their 
scalps.  His  enemies,  when  reduced  to  subjection,  were 
designated  by  such  enduring  marks  of  remembrance  as 
the  removal  of  ears,  noses,  teeth,  and  fingers. 

Eventually  his  refinement  developed  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  merely  killed  his  neighbors  when  they  disagreed 
with  him  about  matters  of  property,  and  reserved  the* 
arts  of  torture  for  those  persistent  associates  who  refused 
to  be  religious  in  his  way  and  according  to  his  improved 
ideas.  His  progressive  ideas  in  regard  to  slavery  are 
noteworthy. 

At  first  he  believed  that  anybody  whom  he  could  re- 
duce to  servitude  was  rightfully  his  slave — his  wife,  his 
father,  or  his  enemy.  Later  on,  he  was  content  with 
holding  his  wife  and  his  servants  as  partial  slaves. 
Finally,  he  concluded  that  slavery  could  only  apply  right- 
fully to  people  whose  skins  were  colored  differently  from 
his  own.  Thus  we  come  to  negro  slavery  ;  and  does  it 
not  seem  astounding,  regarding  slavery  as  we  now  do, 
that  only  a  little  more  than  thirty  years  ago  there  were 
millions  of  slaves  in  the  United  States,  and  that  thousands 
of  our  own  white  blood,  both  North  and  South,  boldly 
defended  its  existence  and  denied  that  it  was  wrong? I 

Does  it  not  seem  to  us  now,  even  at  this  brief  period  of 
one  generation  later,  that  it  is  a  disgrace  upon  humanity 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  should  have  been  compelled  by  the 
opposing  strength  of  public  opinion  to  battle  so  bravely 
for  human  rights,  and  to  gravely  inquire,  as  he  did  in  the 

1  "  In  the  light  of  the  present  day,  when  slavery  no  longer  exists  in  the 
land,  when  speech  is  absolutely  free,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  it  is  hard 
to  believe  that  during  the  Presidency  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  under  the 
Speakership  of  Mr.  Polk,  the  House  of  Representatives  voted  that  . 
'  every  petition,  memorial,  resolution,  proposition,  or  paper,  touching  or 
relating  in  any  way  or  to  any  extent  whatever  to  slavery  or  to  the  aboli- 
tion thereof,  shall  on  presentation,  without  any  further  action  thereon, 
be  laid  upon  the  table,  without  being  debated,  printed  or  referred.'  " — 
JAMES  G.  ELAINE. 


KING   MAMMON.  77 

following  extracts  from  his  speeches,  whether  slavery  is 
right  or  wrong  ? 

"Is  slavery  wrong?  That  is  the  real  issue.  It  is  the 
eternal  struggle  between  these  two  principles,  right  and 
wrong — throughout  the  world.  They  are  two  principles 
that  have  stood  face  to  face  from  the  beginning  of  time ; 
and  will  ever  continue  to  struggle.  The  one  is  the  com- 
mon right  of  humanity,  and  the  other  the  divine  right  of 
kings.  It  is  the  same  principle,  in  whatever  shape  it 
develops  itself.  It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says  :  *  You 
work,  and  toil,  and  earn  bread,  and  I'll  eat  it.'  No  matter 
in  what  shape  it  comes,  whether  from  the  mouth  of  a  king 
who  seeks  to  bestride  the  people  of  his  own  nation  and 
live  by  the  fruit  of  their  own  labor,  or  from  one  race  of 
men  as  an  apology  for  enslaving  another  race,  it  is  the 
same  tyrannical  principle. 

"  I  have  said  that  I  do  not  understand  the  Declaration 
to  mean  that  all  men  were  created  equal  in  all  respects. 
They  are  not  our  equal  in  color ;  but  I  suppose  that  it 
does  mean  to  declare  that  all  men  are  created  equal  in 
some  respects  ;  they  are  equal  in  their  right  to  '  life,  liberty 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness/  Certainly  the  negro  is  not 
our  equal  in  color,  perhaps  not  in  many  other  respects  ; 
still,  in  the  right  to  put  into  his  mouth  the  bread  that  his 
own  hands  have  earned,  he  is  the  equal  of  every  other 
man,  white  or  black." 

Do  not  our  martyred  Lincoln's  words  sound  some- 
what like  the  absurd  inquiries  of  the  rabble  in  Coxey's 
army  that  we  have  already  quoted  ?  And  if  we  substi- 
tute the  words  ' '  wealth  tyranny "  for  slavery  or  slave 
tyranny  in  the  extracts  from  his  speeches,  substituting  for 
the  word  "color"  the  word  "ability,"  will  not  the  brave 
words  of  our  dead  President  bring  home  to  us  a  stern  and 
thoughtful  sense  of  the  wrongs  that  society  is  still  perpe- 
trating, even  though  we  have  abandoned  cannibalism  and 
infanticide  and  negro  slavery  ?  Are  we  so  enraptured  with 
the  glories  of  the  past  that  we  cannot  see  the  wrongs  of 
the  present,  and  shall  we  deny  the  existence  of  those 


78  KING   MAMMON. 

wrongs  on  the  rostrum  and  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  press, 
just  as  Lincoln's  opponents  denied  the  wrongs  of  negro 
slavery  ? 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  conservative  will  again  unite 
with  those  who  have  selfish  interests  in  maintaining 
wealth  tyranny,  just  as  he  joined  those  who  fought  for 
slave-tyranny,  in  our  civil  war  ;  but  every  appeal  should 
be  made  to  the  dormant  spirit  of  progression,  and  every 
remonstrance  urged  against  his  fatal  habit  of  reverence 
for  the  past  and  distrust  of  the  future.  He  should  con- 
sider the  slavery  of  woman,  and  how  from  a  mere  beast 
of  burden,  as  she  was  held  by  our  ancestors,  her  condi- 
tion has  been  gradually  alleviated  by  an  awakening  sense 
of  justice  coincident  with  man's  developing  intelligence, 
until  now  the  actual  dawn  of  a  complete  emancipation 
can  be  perceived. 

Our  conservative  should  remember  that  men  of  his 
class  laughed  in  derision  only  a  few  years  ago  at  any 
serious  proposition  that  woman  should  ^te,  or  that  she 
had  a  natural  right  to  vote.  Yet  the  world  moves  in 
spite  of  conservatism,  and  a  portion  of  the  republic 
already  permits  women  to  vote,  and  other  portions  are 
preparing  to  do  the  same  thing,  while  "woman  suffrage" 
scarcely  meets  with  serious  opposition. 

The  disinterested  conservative  of  to-day  will  ridicule, 
and  the  man  whose  personal  interests  are  directly  af- 
fected will  abuse  the  reformer  who  demands  the  eman- 
cipation of  wealth-slaves,  precisely  as  the  same  factors 
of  society  forty  years  ago  denounced  the  abolitionists  of 
negro  slavery. 

Yet  the  slaves  of  King  Mammon  will  also  become  free, 
for  their  cause  is  just,  and  in  the  end  justice  will  prevail. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  Southern  slave-owner,  the  abolitionist 
was  a  demon  who  would  rob  him  of  his  wealth  and  de- 
prive him  of  the  rights  of  property,  and  this  demon  was 


KING    MAMMON.  ,      79 

held  up  for  universal  execration  in  the  slave-holding  com- 
munity, and  denounced  as  the  most  utterly  debased  of 
all  creatures. 

It  is  ever  thus  with  men  when  their  selfish  personal 
interests  are  attacked.  The  slave-owners  resisted  bitterly 
and  violently  the  onward  progress  of  society,  but  the  doc- 
trines of  the  abolitionists  triumphed,  for  they  were  right, 
and  our  social  direction  is  ever  onward  and  upward,  away 
from  the  gross  brutalities  of  our  early  existence. 

History  will  now  repeat  itself  in  a  new  contest  over  the 
rights  of  property,  but  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  appeal 
will  be  made  to  the  horrible  adjudication  of  civil  war.  In 
the  coming  struggle,  the  abolitionists  of  1860  will  become 
the  "  anarchists  "  of  1900, l  for  this  term  of  opprobrium  will 
be  applied  to  all  who  demand  important  changes  in  what 
are  now  considered  the  absolute  rights  to  property,2  ex- 
actly as  slave-ownership  was  considered  an  absolute  right 
fifty  years  ago.  In  the  progress  of  the  anti-slavery  agita- 
tion, people  who  had  no  direct  interest  in  the  maintenance 
of  slavery,  at  first  regarded  the  abolitionist  as  a  harmless 
fanatic  ;  the  slave-owner  considered  him  a  dangerous 
fanatic.  So,  in  the  new  crusade  against  slavery  by  wealth- 
power,  the  men  who  first  demand  emancipation  will  be 
denominated  harmless  anarchistic  or  socialistic  enthus- 
iasts by  those  who  have  no  immediate  personal  interests 
involved  in  the  agitation,  and  dangerous  anarchistic 
demons  by  those  whose  power  and  privileges  must  be 

1 "  In  truth  it  required  no  small  degree  of  moral  courage  to  take  posi- 
tion in  the  ranks  of  that  despised  political  sect  forty-five  years  ago. 
Persecutions  of  a  petty  and  social  character  were  almost  sure  to  follow, 
and  not  infrequently  grievous  wrongs  were  inflicted,  for  which,  in  the 
absence  of  a  disposition  among  the  people  to  see  justice  done,  the  law 
afforded  no  redress." — JAMES  G.  ELAINE. 

2  Rev.  George  D.  Herron,  the  author  and  lecturer  on  Christian  Social- 
ism, one  of  the  least  aggressive  forms  of  progressive  thought,  was  pub- 
licly denounced  as  an  anarchist  in  San  Francisco  in  April,  1895,  by  a 
Dr.  Brown,  whose  ancient  slave-driving  instincts  would  still  lead  him  to 
repress  free  speech. 


8O  KING   MAMMON. 

invaded  by  new  laws.  The  monopolists  of  earth  and 
earthly  opportunities  will  abuse  those  who  oppose  the 
perpetuation  of  their  privileges  as  viciously  as  the  slave- 
holders denounced  the  early  abolitionists  of  the  under- 
ground railway,  and  they  will  assert  that  he  who  ques- 
tions the  justice  of  our  present  laws  relating  to  the  distri- 
bution of  property  is  a  traitor  to  his  country  and  a  foe  to 
law  and  order. 

It  is  sufficient  for  the  present  to  remember  that  no  real 
alleviation  of  existing  wrongs  can  be  achieved  except 
through  law  and  order  and  the  peaceable  expression  of 
the  will  of  the  majority. 

With  the  destructive  knights  of  the  torch  and  the  bomb, 
this  book  has  naught  to  do.  Its  author  was  born  in  this 
country  of  ancestors  reared  for  generations  in  the  spirit 
of  American  institutions.  He  is  proud  of  the  record  his 
country  has  already  inscribed  in  the  pages  of  history  by 
obliterating  the  tyrannical  dogmas  of  a  barbarous  past, 
and  he  honors  the  brave  spirit  of  the  American  people 
too  much  to  remain  silent  when  they  are  drifting  steadily 
in  a  current  that  can  lead  only  to  destruction.  Mental 
and  moral  agitation,  the  accomplishment  of  justice,  the 
right  of  free  speech,  and  peaceful  government  by  the 
majority  are  all  that  the  writer  desires  or  demands.  If 
he  cannot  show  that  all  his  claims  are  founded  on  justice 
and  equal  rights,  he  asks  neither  sympathy  nor  support 
from  any  man  for  the  cause  he  advocates.  Yet  the 
friends  of  liberty  must  demand  that  no  voice  calling  for 
reform,  however  radical,  shall  be  drowned  in  a  storm  of 
denunciation  amid  the  howl  of  "  anarchist." 

Let  us  approach  the  question  of  the  rights  to  property 
boldly  and  frankly,  with  no  weak  subservience  to  the 
past  and  no  unmanly  fears  of  the  future.  Let  us  con- 
stantly inquire:  Is  it  right — is  it  just?  When,  after 
mature  deliberation,  we  can  clearly  answer  those  ques- 


KING   MAMMON.  .  8l 

tions,  let  us  hold  fast  to  what  is  just  "  though  the  heavens 
fall,"  for  in  the  maintenance  of  justice  only  can  there 
be  abiding  government  and  permanent  social  prosperity. 
As  this  republic  could  not  exist  half  slave  and  half  free, 
so  it  cannot  exist  with  a  race  of  wealth  aristocrats  ruling 
a  race  of  serfs.  With  justice  at  the  foundation  and  prog- 
ress under  just  laws,  our  government  may  survive;  but 
whenever  an  unjust  institution  is  permitted  in  society 
and  allowed  to  develop,  it  terminates  in  blood  and  de- 
struction. The  seeds  of  evil  deposited  by  one  generation 
of  men  ripen  into  Dead  Sea  fruit  to  be  gathered  by  their 
successors.  Humanity  is  now  about  to  gather  one  of 
these  bitter  harvests  for  which  the  seeds  were  planted  a 
thousand  years  ago.  What  will  that  harvest  be  ? 
6 


82  KING   MAMMON. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  UPAS  TREE. 

"  That  our  Creator  made  the  earth  for  the  use  of  the  living  and  not  of 
the  dead  ;  that  those  who  exist  not  can  have  no  use  nor  rights  in  it ;  no 
authority  or  power  over  it  ;  that  one  generation  of  men  cannot  foreclose  or 
burden  its  use  to  another,  which  comes  to  it  in  their  wvn  right,  and  by  the 
same  Divine  beneficence  ;  that  a  preceding  generation  cannot  bind  a  suc- 
ceeding one  by  its  laws  or  contracts,  these  deriving  their  obligation  from 
the  will  of  the  existing  majority,  and  that  majority  being  removed  by  death, 
another  comes  in  its  place  with  a  will  equally  free  to  make  its  own  laws  and 
contracts — these  are  axioms  so  self-evident  that  no  explanation  cau  make  them 
plainer  ;  for  he  is  not  to  be  reasoned  with  who  says  that  non-existence  can 
control  existence,  or  that  nothing  can  move  something.  They  are  axioms, 
also,  pregnant  with  salutary  consequences.  The  laws  of  civil  society,  indeed, 
for  the  encouragement  of  industry,  give  the  property  of  the  parent  to  his 
family  on  his  death,  and  in  most  civilized  countries  permit  him  to  give  it  by 
testament  to  whom  he  pleases.  And  it  is  also  found  more  convenient  to 
suffer  the  laws  to  stand  on  our  implied  assent  as  if  positively  re-enacted, 
until  the  existing  majority  repeals  them  ;  buf  this  does  not  lessen  the  right 
of  that  majority  to  repeal  whenever  a  change  of  circumstances  or  of  will 
calls  for  it.  Habit  alone  confounds  civil  practice  with  natural  right." 

— THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

IN  order  to  discuss  the  social  problem  of  wealth-con- 
ditions on  a  plane  that  will  free  it  from  the  charge  of 
sentimentality,  and  reduce  it  to  the  simplest  possible  form 
of  human  rights,  we  will  discard  from  consideration  all 
ideas  of  charity,  benevolence,  religion,  or  any  other  feel- 
ing that  might  call  down  mercy  for  the  poor  man.  All 
that  will  be  demanded  for  him  is  justice  and  fair  oppor- 
tunities in  the  contest.  Equality  of  wealth  is  not  claimed 
for  any  man  in  these  pages,  but  equality  of  opportunity 
is  surely  justice  to  which  he  is  entitled.  Let  us  now  see 
whether  in  the  race  of  life,  he  runs  in  a  fair  field  with  no 
favors  granted  to  other  men. 

Under  just  laws  the  evil  results  of  wealth  concentration 


KING   MAMMON.  '   83 

by  the  competitive  system  of  modern  social  life  would 
not  become  very  serious  or  dangerous  were  those  condi- 
tions not  fixed,  transferred,  and  perpetuated  by  the  lapse 
of  time  and  the  changes  in  population.  If  at  any  period 
of  the  earth's  history,  and  in  any  country,  we  place  any 
number  of  men  at  work  with  free  access  to  the  advan- 
tages of  earth  as  a  home,  they  will  labor  in  various  ways, 
with  different  habits  and  degrees  of  intelligence  and  in- 
dustry. In  the  accumulation  of  wealth  and  the  means  of 
comfort,  some  will  naturally  and  justly  achieve  a  greater 
prosperity  than  others.  This  statement  of  an  evident 
truth  constitutes  the  standard  argument  of  those  who 
oppose  or  ridicule  any  attack  on  the  injustice  of  existing 
wealth-distribution.  A  frank  admission  of  this  truth  is- 
thus  stated,  for  this  book  is  not  written  to  excite  ignor- 
ant prejudice,  but"  to  stimulate  thought  and  discussion. 
When  men  commence  life  with  equal  opportunities  and 
contest  for  success,  some  will  inevitably  and  justly — so 
far  as  justice  can  be  obtained  under  competition — become 
richer  than  others.  In  the  average  existence  of  one  gen- 
eration, perhaps  thirty-five  years,  or  even  in  twice  that 
period,  the  differences  in  wealth-accumulation  will  not 
ordinarily  become  oppressive  or  dangerous  and  destruc- 
tive to  government,  for  absolute  equality  of  wealth  is  not 
necessary  to  an  equitable  condition  under  competition, 
and  not  really  desirable  even  if  it  were  possible.  In  a 
single  generation  the  wealthy  people  do  not  become  idle 
and  profligate,  nor  the  poor  such  miserable  rats  of  servile 
poverty  as  now  exist  in  the  slums  of  every  city.  The 
richest  man  will  still  remain  a  worker,  and  the  poorest 
man  will  not  have  prepared  a  bomb  with  which  to  an- 
nihilate the  other.  If,  then,  a  single  generation  could 
exist  under  competitive  principles  without  necessary  injus- 
tice, and  if  every  other  generation,  under  the  same  con- 
ditions, could  live  out  a  fair  competition,  and,  finally,  if 


84  KING   MAMMON. 

after  the  lapse  of  many  generations  every  country  in  the 
world  has  arrived  at  a  condition  of  such  frightful  and 
evident  injustice  that  men  are  being  driven  to  riot  and 
murder  and  rebellion  on  account  of  it,  the  essential  wrong 
at  the  foundation  must  exist  in  the  links  which  connect 
one  generation  with  the  next ;  for  if  injustice  does  not 
exist  in  the  competition  of  any  generation  separately 
wherein  all  the  individuals  possess  equal  opportunities, 
it  must  exist  in  whatever  connects  those  generations,  by 
which  unfairness  enters  at  the  beginning  of  every  new 
contest.  We  will  search,  therefore,  in  the  laws  of  suc- 
cessions for  the  principles  upon  which  they  are  based, 
and  examine  the  methods  by  which  the  wealth  accum- 
ulated by  one  generation  is  transferred  to  the  next. 

It  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  any  intelligent  person, 
unbiased  by  motives  of  personal  loss  or  gain,  after  reflect- 
ing on  the  nature  of  our  present  laws  of  succession,  can 
doubt  that  they  embody  the  unfairness  which  is  the 
principal  cause  of  the  dangerous  wealth-conditions  that 
are  within  our  power  to  modify  by  legislation,  and  that 
the  essential  wrong  of  an  aristocracy,  domineering  over 
an  humbler  and  greater  body  of  apparently  equally  de- 
serving people,  is  to  be  found  in  the  unjust  principle, 
which  has  usually  received  the  sanction  of  civilized 
society  in  all  its  recorded  history,  by  which  the  ancestor 
who  has  accumulated  wealth  names  his  successor  and 
delivers  his  possessions  to  one  or  a  few  survivors,  inde- 
pendently of  any  efforts  which  the  latter  may  or  may  not 
have  made  in  the  acquisition  of  the  property  which  they 
receive  by  his  bequest. 

Transmitted  in  this  way,  there  is  a  tendency  for  the 
original  fortune  to  increase  as  an  aggregate  within  the 
family  limits,  and  to  become  fixed  as  a  family  posses- 
sion ;  for,  if  the  heirs,  who  are  usually  the  direct  descend- 
ants, inherit,  as  they  naturally  do,  the  money-making 


KING    MAMMON.  '    85 

instincts  or  talents  of  the  ancestor,  the  family  estate  in- 
creases in  value  from  generation  to  generation,  gaining 
volume  like  a  snowball  as  it  is  pushed  forward. 

Many  fortunes,  it  is  true,  have  been  dissipated  by 
spendthrift  heirs,  and  by  division  under  bequests  ;  but 
immediate  or  even  rapid  distribution  is  not  the  natural 
and  usual  tendency,  for  the  accumulating  ancestor  almost 
invariably  feels  a  pride  in  his  fortune  and  desires  to  leave 
it  in  a  body  if  possible,  so  that  it  may  be  a  monument  to 
his  superior  abilities  ;  and  the  natural  laws  of  heredity 
often  carry  money-making  and  money-saving  instincts 
down  through  many  generations  in  one  family. 

The  families  of  the  Rothschilds  and  the  Astors  are 
notable  instances  of  this  kind,  and  the  fact  that  large  for- 
tunes are  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  in 
every  civilized  country,  although  many  fortunes  are  dis- 
sipated, is  proof  of  the  tendency  of  wealth  to  fossilize 
without  further  comment. 

The  inequitable  and  wasteful  distribution  of  wealth  by 
profligate  heirs  is  almost  universally  regarded  as  beneficial 
to  society.  People  would  rather  see  a  great  fortune  broken 
up  by  wasteful  heirs  than  to  see  it  perpetuated  ;  but  so 
inconsistent  is  average  human  nature  of  the  unreflective 
sort,  that  many  of  those  who  approve  this  distribution, 
will  denounce  methods  that  are  far  more  equitable  and 
beneficial  than  the  extravagance  and  vicious  habits  of 
spendthrift  heirs. 

In  the  law  of  successions  lies  the  root  of  the  wealth 
evil.  Where  else  can  it  be  ?  If  the  conditions  of  natural 
competition — not  modem  competition — are  just,  as  nearly 
every  one  believes,  there  is  nothing  unfair  in  the  condi- 
tions of  the  struggle  till  competitors  drop  out  of  the  con- 
test by  death,  and  others  are  substituted  by  birth  and  in- 
heritance ;  yet  in  spite  of  this  assumed  fairness  every 
country  in  the  world  eventually  reaches  the  same  dis- 


86  KING   MAMMON. 

astrous  condition  of  the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor,  with 
aristocracy  and  pauperism,  and  where  men  who  cannot 
find  an  opportunity  to  work  for  mere  bread  view  with  the 
murderous  instincts  of  the  savage  heart  of  destitution  the 
luxury  of  another  man  who  never  in  his  life  did  an  honest 
day's  work  in  productive  effort  of  any  kind. 

The  succession  of  generations  and  the  manner  in  which 
property  rights  are  transferred  are  the  principal  causes 
which  breed  the  evil.  Nearly  every  man  whose  selfish 
interests  do  not  distort  his  judgment  will  acknowledge  the 
injustice  of  the  result  of  transmitted  fortunes,  but  few,  it 
is  believed,  have  noted  the  equal  injustice  of  the  cause, 
for  the  nature  of  inheritance  has  not  frequently  been 
analyzed.  It  can  hardly  be  disputed  that  under  any 
possible  form  of  government  based  on  the  competitive 
system  which  men  can  establish  (excepting  the  limitation 
or  prohibition  of  wealth  accumulation,  a  course  really 
destructive  of  free  competition),  if  inheritance  be  permitted 
in  the  form  that  now  exists,  great  fortunes  involving  a 
monopoly  of  earth  will  inevitably  ensue  ;  the  very  rich 
and  the  very  poor  will  be  brought  into  fierce  opposition 
long  before  the  density  of  population  compels  a  merely 
animal  struggle  for  existence  ;  and  the  government  will 
go  down  under  internecine  strife  unless  temporizing  meas- 
ures can  allay  the  ill-feeling  of  the  disinherited. 

There  is  no  escape  from  this  result.  This  being  the 
status  of  our  wealth  problem,  what  can  we  do  ?  One 
thing  ought  to  be  evident :  Any  governmental  principle 
that  we  adopt  must  be  approximately  just  in  order  to 
secure  a  permanent  prosperity  or  genuine  progress.  Pub- 
lic good  cannot  arise  from  public  wrong  at  its  foundation. 
Evil  seeds  will  produce  evil  fruit.  If  the  converse  of  this 
proposition  be  true,  that  evil  fruits  are  developed  from 
evil  seeds,  no  additional  argument  should  be  necessary  to 
convince  an  unprejudiced  reader  that  he  will  discover 


KING    MAMMON.  S; 

something  wrong  in  the  law  of  successions,  for  the  evil 
fruits  are  to  be  found  on  every  hand. 

After  deliberate  thought,  the  writer  is  convinced  that 
the  system  of  bequest  and  inheritance  that  prevails  in 
every  civilized  country  is  radically  unjust  and  productive 
of  tyranny,  and  that  it  develops  the  principal  conditions 
of  which  the  moral  sense  of  society  now  complains. 

No  person  in  whom  there  exists  any  genuine  love  of 
fair  play  can  compare  the  condition  of  a  boy  who  inherits 
a  fortune  of  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars  with  the  con- 
dition of  a  thousand  other  children  taken  at  random  from 
the  people  surrounding  him,  remembering  that  as  children 
they  have  not  produced  what  their  ancestors  have  accumu- 
lated, be  it  much  or  little,  and  remembering  that  if  they 
compete  with  one  another  for  success  in  life  they  should 
justly  have  an  approach  to  equal  opportunities  at  the 
start,  and  then  say  that  such  a  condition  and  such  strife 
are  just ;  that  all  of  those  children  really  have  fair  oppor- 
tunities, considering  life  as  a  contest  ;  that  every  child  is 
in  possession  of  his  natural  rights  ;  and  that  all  exist  as 
God  or  nature  intended  that  they  should  exist.  We  all 
know  there  is  unfairness  in  any  contest  of  that  kind. 
We  would  not  permit  our  horses  to  run  in  a  race  where 
one  possessed  all  the  advantage  of  position  at  the  start. 
Even  boys  playing  a  game  of  ball  or  marbles  would  rebel 
and  become  "anarchists"  under  conditions  so  grossly 
unjust. 

We  will  commence  our  investigations  by  inquiring  in 
the  first  place,  what  natural  right  any  man  has  to  become 
an  heir.  Does  the  son  or  other  descendant  of  a  wealthy 
ancestor,  or  does  any  other  survivor,  possess  any  natural 
or  just  claim  to  the  property  of  the  decedent  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  his  fellow-creatures  ?  Society  has  at  various 
times  in  different  countries  granted  a  legal  right — some- 
times absolute,  sometimes  secondary,  to  the  legal  right  of 


KING   MAMMON. 

the  ancestor — to  bestow  his  wealth  upon  certain  persons 
recognized  as  heirs  and  preferred  as  successors  ;  but,  after 
discarding  all  considerations  of  labor  and  reward,  it  can 
be  conclusively  denied  that  any  person  has  a  natural  or 
just  claim  upon  society  for  this  preference.  The  only  just 
claim  that  any  man  can  have  upon  property  is  from  what 
we  call  production,  which  is  only  transformation  by  the 
application  of  labor  ;  for  there  is  never  any  absolute  pro- 
duction in  the  sense  of  bringing  something  into  existence 
that  did  not  exist  before.  A  man  can  make  a  plow,  but 
he  cannot  make  the  chemical  elements  that  enter  into  the 
material  which  composes  it,  so  his  production  is  only  a 
transformation. 

Hence  it  can  be  proved  that  unless  any  person  has  pro- 
duced or  assisted  to  produce  the  fortune  which  he  expects 
to  inherit,  he  has  no  better  right  to  it,  in  a  moral  sense, 
than  any  other  survivor,  for  in  attempting  to  establish 
justice  in  society,  we  cannot  permit  the  mere  question  of 
consanguinity  to  affect  our  verdict. 

My  father  may  have  been  a  murderer,  but  society  does 
not  attach  blame  to  me  on  account  of  his  acts  ;  therefore, 
if  my  father  happens  to  have  accumulated  a  million  of 
dollars,  why  should  society  permit  me  to  claim  the  credit 
and  take  the  entire  amount,  regardless  of  my  own  efforts 
and  success,  on  account  of  the  same  kind  of  relationship  ? 

When  man  enters  this  world,  by  his  mere  presence  upon 
the  planet,  if  any  attempt  is  to  be  made  at  equitable 
government,  he  justly  acquires  the  natural  right  to  freely 
use  earth  in  all  its  multiplicity  of  forms,  observing  and  ad- 
mitting similar  rights  in  every  other  man.  He  has  an  equal 
right  with  all  others  to  the  use  of  natural  wealth  surround- 
ing him,  and  a  better  right  than  all  others  to  that  definite 
portion  of  the  earth  to  which  his  labor  has  been  applied. 
If  we  except  the  mere  exchanges  of  property  rights,  I  can 
conceive  of  no  just  method  by  which  any  man  can  estab- 


KING   MAMMON.  -89 

lish  a  special  claim  to  what  he  has  not  produced  by  his 
own  efforts.     I  do  not  understand  wherein  any  person  can 
establish  a  just  claim  to  succeed  to  the  property  of  another 
person  by  inheritance,  when  his  own  efforts  have  not  pro 
duced  the  wealth. 

No  matter  what  position  may  be  taken  concerning  the 
justice  or  expediency  involved  in  the  accumulation  of  huge 
fortunes  by  monopolies  and  speculation  ;  no  matter  if  we 
concede  that  gambling  is  fair  among  gamblers,  and 
the  successful  gambler  entitled  to  what  he  wins  ;  no 
matter  if  we  concede  that  every  great  fortune  is  accumu- 
lated justly,  still  it  must  be  denied  that  the  son  of  another 
man  who  has  produced  or  accumulated  wealth  by  the 
fairest  methods,  has  any  just  claim  upon  that  wealth,  un- 
less his  own  efforts  have  entered  into  the  production  of  it ; 
for  any  other  theory  is  an  acknowledgment  that  certain 
men  should  reap  where  they  have  not  sown,  should  ex- 
pect a  substantial  reward  from  idleness  and  social  worth- 
lessness,  and  should  require  society  to  set  them  up  as  some- 
thing better  than  ordinary  mortals,  who  must  work  before 
they  eat. 

By  long-established  custom  the  heir  apparent  imagines 
that  he  possesses  some  natural  claim  upon  the  property 
of  his  ancestor,  and  often  feels  aggrieved,  as  though  he 
were  treated  unjustly,  when  the  dying  man  disinherits 
him  at  the  final  moment,  even  if  he  has  in  no  way  aided 
in  producing  the  fortune  he  desires.  The  disappointed  de- 
scendant is  right  in  feeling  injustice,  but  the  injustice  that 
really  exists  is  not  the  imaginary  injustice  that  he  thinks 
he  feels. 

As  one  of  the  great  social  group  remaining  after  his 
ancestor's  death,  he  is  entitled  to  his  equal  share  of  the 
specialized  property  that  was  left  behind  ;  but  otherwise 
the  disinherited  offspring  expecting  the  reward  of  another 
man's  exertions  is  not  defrauded  of  anything  whatever 


QO  KING   MAMMON. 

that  could  be  or  ought  to  be  his  by  the  inexorable  decrees 
of  justice,  for  he  is  only  one  of  the  many  who  should 
inherit  the  earth  as  other  men  lose  the  power  to  use  it  by 
the  decrees  of  death.  No  man  has  any  natural  right  or 
equitable  ground  for  claiming  anything  that  he  has  not 
produced,  beyond  the  equal  right  that  is  possessed  by 
every  other  man  to  occupy  and  use  earth  and  its  products. 
No  man  can  justly  establish  an  exclusive  claim  to  an 
inheritance,  and  every  edict  of  society  providing  for 
special  inheritance  is  a  wrong  perpetrated  upon  the  body 
of  the  people. 

Where  the  will  of  the  state  is  permitted  to  operate  in 
the  case  of  distant  relatives,  who  have  had  no  intimate 
personal  association  with  the  decedent,  and  who  receive 
a  large  fortune  without  having  known  the  owner,  this  lack 
of  equity  becomes  very  apparent. 

The  following  account  of  a  fortune  inherited  in  this  way 
recently  appeared  in  the  newspapers  of  California  : 

"  More  like  a  romance  reads  a  narrative  of  real  life,  in 
which  the  parties  interested  are  Contra  Costa  and  Alameda 
County  people.  Many  years  ago  one  Dan  O'Keefe  of 
County  Cork,  Ireland,  took  passage  on  a  man-of-war 
bound  for  the  East  Indies.  The  lad  was  about  16  or  18 
years  of  age,  and  was  seized  with  a  love  of  adventure  and 
a  desire  to  amass  a  fortune.  He  evidently  accomplished 
both,  for,  unknown  to  his  family  during  life,  it  turned  out 
that  at  his  death  he  left  a  fortune  of  five  million  sovereigns, 
that  for  the  last  eight  years  has  been  seeking  for  heirs. 
As  near  as  can  be  ascertained  with  regard  to  this  young 
man's  career,  the  fortune  had  been  accumulated  through 
trading  in  diamonds  and  opium. 

"  English  lawyers  in  London,  England,  have  been 
searching  the  world  over  for  the  relatives  of  this  dead  mil- 
lionaire, and  letters  finally  reached  the  O'Keefe  family  of 
Contra  Costa  County.  Four  of  the  brothers — John,  Dennis, 
Dan,  and  Jerry — reside  in  Alameda  County,  while  a  sister, 
Mrs.  P.  Roche,  lives  near  our  town  of  Concord,  in  Contra 
Costa  County.  So  far  they  have  proved  themselves  the 


KING   MAMMON.  £1 

nearest  of  kin,  first  cousins,  and  Mrs.  P.  Roche  has  rec- 
ollections of  her  kinsman  leaving  his  Irish  home  to  seek 
his  fortune. 

"The  property  is  drawing  interest  at  the  rate  of  half  a 
million  dollars  yearly,  and  the  fortune  now  figures  up  a 
total  of  some  thirty  millions  of  dollars. " — Concord  Sun. 

Whether  this  narrative  is  exactly  correct  or  not  in  details 
is  immaterial,  so  far  as  the  logic  of  the  circumstances  is 
concerned.  The  essence  of  the  story  is  that  a  man  ac- 
cumulates a  fortune  on  one  side  of  the  earth,  which  neces- 
sarily represents  not  his  own  production,  but  the  con- 
centrated production  of  a  vast  number  of  other  men  as 
well  as  himself.  At  his  death  the  control  of  this  great 
wealth  is  transferred  to  a  few  people  on  the  other  side  of 
the  earth,  who  never  knew  its  possessor,  who  never 
assisted  in  any  way  to  produce  the  fortune,  and  whose 
sole  claim  to  inheritance  is  the  mere  accident  of  relation- 
ship through  a  common  ancestor,  which  occurred  inde- 
pendently of  any  volition  of  their  own. 

The  absurdity  of  this  kind  of  wealth  distribution  be- 
comes very  apparent  in  a  case  like  the  one  narrated  in  the 
statement  here  quoted,  but  the  real  nature  of  the  transferral 
would  not  be  altered  if  the  heirs  had  been  children  of  the 
dead  man,  instead  of  cousins,  provided  they  had  not  as- 
sisted in  the  actual  production  or  accumulation  of  the 
fortune.  The  essential  thought  involved  is  that,  whereas 
it  would  be  unjust  to  hang  a  child  because  its  father  was 
a  murderer,  or  imprison  it  because  he  was  a  thief,  so  it  is 
unjust  to  permit  a  child  to  set  up  any  special  claim  to  its 
father's  fortune  merely  because  he  happened  to  be  a 
wealthy  man  instead  of  a  thief  or  a  murderer.  The  child  is 
not  responsible  for  the  crimes  of  the  parent,  and  is  not 
rightfully  credited  with  the  rewards  of  the  parent's  worldly 
success  or  distinction.  Society  has  already  rejected  the 
idea  that  the  son  of  a  ruler  is  entitled  to  the  same  power, 


Q2  KING   MAMMON. 

but  it  has  not  given  up  the  notion  that  the  son  of  a  wealthy 
man  is  in  some  way  entitled  to  the  fortune  his  father  has 
accumulated. 

Having  thus  roughly  sketched  the  fallacious  ideas  that 
are  embodied  in  the  views  of  an  expectant  heir,  we  will 
postpone  a  more  thorough  discussion  of  the  principles 
they  involve,  and  briefly  consider  the  position  and  rights 
of  the  ancestor  who  expects  to  bequeath  property  at  his 
death.  Nearly  every  man  who  at  first  considers  the  ethics 
of  successions  will  say  :  "I  believe  that  I  have  a  moral, 
as  well  as  a  legal,  right  to  dispose  of  my  property  exactly 
as  I  please  at  my  death. "  We  shall  investigate  this  ques- 
tion, and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  every  reader  will  approach 
the  subject  with  an  honest  desire  to  reach  the  truth  and 
evolve  principles  of  justice  and  equity  ;  for  on  no  other 
basis  can  peace  be  maintained  and  society  protected  from 
warring  factions. 

In  the  first  place,  society  does  not,  even  now,  recog- 
nize an  unrestricted  right  in  a  decedent  to  transfer  his  in- 
dividual possessions,  for  in  some  nations  and  states  he 
may  not  absolutely  disinherit  his  direct  descendants.  The 
principle  is  slightly  recognized  in  the  present,  as  it  has 
been  very  distinctly  in  the  past,  that  the  power  of  mak- 
ing bequests  is  not  an  absolute  right  that  belongs  to  the 
individual,  but  is  merely  a  privilege  conferred  upon  him 
by  society,  in  order  to  provide  a  convenient  method  of 
succession. 

If  we  believe  that  men  should  have  equal  opportunities 
in  the  struggle  for  existence,  when  they  are  associated 
under  one  government,  and  if  we  are  prepared  to  concede 
to  other  men  what  we  demand  for  ourselves,  we  must 
deny  all  right  in  any  man  to  bequeath  anything  whatso- 
ever. For  what  moral  right  has  any  man  when  he  aban- 
dons the  world  and  resigns  by  force  of  stern  necessity 
his  interests  therein,  to  interfere  with  the  progress  of  the 


KING   MAMMON.  £3 

survivors,  by  transferring  those  interests  to  one  or  a  few, 
when  that  transfer  will  immediately  and  necessarily  pro- 
duce unjust  conditions  among  them  by  giving  to  a  favored 
class  wealth  which  they  have  not  produced,  and  to  which 
they  are  not  entitled  ?  When  I  inquire  for  this  moral  right, 
or  social  reason,  for  the  privilege  that  has  been  granted, 
I  demand  for  humanity  justice  and  equal  rights,  not  an 
expression  of  individual  desires  born  of  natural  love  and 
affection. 

What  right,  I  say,  not  what  desire,  has  any  man  to  inter- 
fere in  the  competition  between  his  children  and  the  chil- 
dren of  other  men  in  the  surviving  generation  by  bequeath- 
ing to  his  own  progeny  the  vast  power  of  a  fortune? 
The  battle  for  success  is  not  between  the  dead  and  the 
living,  but  between  the  living  alone ;  and  if  government 
is  to  survive,  we  must  continually  effect  justice  between 
the  men  who  continue  to  inhabit  the  earth. 

Even  brutalized  humanity  does  not  permit  a  dog-fight 
under  such  unfair  conditions,  yet  our  boasted  civilization, 
with  its  supposed  triumphs  of  justice,  condemns  posterity 
to  a  battle  for  existence  in  which  at  the  outset  some  are 
equipped  with  fortunes  and  others  hampered  with  abject 
poverty. 

Paternal  love  causes  nearly  every  man  to  think  that  as 
he  would  like  to  leave  a  large  fortune  to  his  children  if 
he  possessed  one,  so  he  ought  to  be  willing  to  permit 
another  man  who  actually  possesses  such  wealth  to  be- 
queath it  as  he  sees  fit.  That  is  a  wrong  conclusion,  be- 
cause it  is  based,  not  upon  the  principle  of  fairness  or 
justice,  but  upon  the  parental  instinct  of  protection  to  off- 
spring which  is  common  to  all  the  mammalia,  and  is  dis- 
played in  equal  perfection  by  the  she-wolf  when  guard- 
ing her  litter.  Even  granting  the  idea  that  the  parental 
principle  of  affection  must  be  recognized,  there  still  re- 
mains the  fact  that  the  poor  man  has  a  natural  affection 


94  KING    MAMMON. 

for  his  children,  and  would  see  them  started  fairly  in  the 
world  when  he  leaves  it,  without  unjust  discrimination 
against  them. 

If,  however,  men  would  arrive  at  any  solution  of  social 
troubles,  they  must  discard  the  bias  of  self-love  and  love 
for  other  people,  and  continually  inquire:  "What  is 
just?"  It  will  not  do  to  say  :  "This  act  is  right  because 
I  would  like  to  do  it,  and  am  willing  that  other  men  shall 
do  the  same  thing."  The  same  false  reasoning  would 
sanction  theft  and  murder,  and  reduce  society  to  anarchy. 
When  the  act  men  like  to  do  is  in  itself  unjust,  the  result 
of  its  continuance  is  accumulated  injustice  and  social 
wrongs  that  eventually  transform  men  into  maddened 
brutes.  Society  is  continuing  a  wrong  by  permitting  the 
individual  power  of  making  bequests.  To  realize  that 
wrong,  we  have  only  to  imagine  that  our  present  wealth 
centralization  shall  increase,  till  one  man  owns  the  entire 
wealth  of  the  nation,  the  others  renting  or  borrowing  of 
him  as  their  necessities  compel  them  to  do  ;  and  that 
he  then  bequeaths  his  wealth  dominion  to  successors. 
Would  not  such  a  condition  be  an  absurdity  ?  Yet,  if  it 
is  right  for  a  man  to  bequeath  one  dollar,  it  is  right  for 
him  to  bequeath  the  entire  wealth  of  the  nation,  provided 
that  he  can  subject  it  to  his  control. 

The  only  doctrine  that  can  be  reasonably  maintained  is 
that  men  are  merely  life-tenants  on  earth,  and  that  when 
they  die  all  their  rights  cease.  The  ancestor  has  no 
moral  or  natural  right  to  name  his  successor,  and  the  heir 
expectant  has  no  such  right  to  succeed  to  the  fortune,  no 
matter  what  be  the  existing  relationship,  unless  he  can 
show  the  right  of  a  producer.  Succession  to  wealth  is 
purely  a  matter  for  society  to  determine  in  accordance 
with  justice  to  all  its  members. 


KING   MAMMON.  95 


CHAPTER  VII. 

MENTAL  AND  MORAL  TREADMILLS. 

"  The  mind  of  man  may  be  compared  to  a  musical  instrument  with  a 
certain  range  of  notes,  beyond  which  in  both  directions  we  have  an  infini- 
tude of  silence.  The  phenomena  of  matter  and  force  lie  within  his  intel- 
lectual range,  and  as  far  as  they  reach,  we  will  at  all  hazards  push  our 
inquiries.  But  behind,  and  above,  and  around  all,  the  real  mystery  of 
this  ttniverse  lies  unsolved.  .  .  .  Fashion  this  mystery  as  you  will  .  .  . 
but  be  careful  that  your  conception  of  it  be  not  an  unworthy  one.  Invest 
that  conception  with  your  highest  and  holiest  thought,  but  be  careful  of 
pretending  to  know  more  about  it  than  is  given  to  man  to  know" 

— JOHN  TYNDALL. 

THE  philosophical  reader,  especially  if  he  be  conten- 
tious, will  object  to  the  expression,  natural  rights,  which 
occurs  frequently  in  some  portions  of  this  work.  The 
French  writers  of  the  Revolution,  basing  their  theories  on 
an  imperfect  knowledge  of  history,  assumed  that  the  so- 
cial institutions  of  that  era  had  degenerated  from  a  sup- 
posed State  of  Nature  in  which  they  were  pure  and  just. 
Man's  "natural  rights"  were  those  which  he  possessed 
in  this  fictitious  condition,  and  of  which,  it  was  presumed, 
he  had  been  deprived  by  tyranny.  This  usage  of  the 
phrase  has  been  justly  ridiculed,  and  the  theory  of  man's 
previously  happy  condition  in  a  State  of  Nature  long 
since  abandoned,  so  a  few  words  explanatory  of  the 
phrase  as  here  used  are  necessary. 

The  words  "natural  rights"  do  not  form  a  very  ac- 
curate expression  of  thought,  for  they  may  indicate  some 
imaginary  rights  conferred  by  nature  upon  man,  or  they 
may  mean  certain  privileges  that  he  ought  to  possess, 
but  which  he  does  or  does  not  possess  according  to  the 
tenor  of  the  governmental  and  social  regulations  by  which 


96  KING   MAMMON. 

he  is  controlled.  As  to  the  first  meaning,  I  agree  with 
the  objectors  to  the  theory  of  natural  rights  in  failing  to 
discover  any  morality  in  the  laws  of  Dame  Nature,  or  any 
disposition  on  her  part  to  discriminate  between  what  hu- 
man beings  term  right  and  wrong,  for  "the  rain  falleth 
upon  the  just  and  upon  the  unjust,"  and  the  light  of 
heaven  shines  to  assist  the  demons  of  evil  as  clearly  and 
steadily  as  to  aid  the  purer  spirits  of  mercy  and  benevo- 
lency.  In  the  struggle  of  life,  among  all  her  creatures, 
Nature  invariably  crowns,  the  strongest  in  its  entire  adap- 
tation to  environment,  without  the  least  regard  for  what 
men  call  mercy  or  justice.  In  this  sense  of  assumed 
privileges  conferred  by  nature  on  human  existence,  the 
phrase  " natural  rights"  has  no  significance,  for  nature 
never  conferred  aught  but  a  battle  to  the  death  for  mere 
existence  upon  any  living  thing.  The  real  significance 
of  the  expression  as  it  is  here  used  is  in  contradistinction 
to  artificial  rights,  or  legal  rights,  or  acquired  rights ; 
that  is,  natural  rights  are  those  which  the  law  may  or  may 
not  recognize,  but  which  the  individual  ought  to  possess 
were  his  condition  made  to  conform  to  the  ideas  of 
justice  ordinarily  accepted  and  enforced  by  his  fellow- 
men.  Thus,  in  relation  to  the  female  sex,  civilized  hu- 
manity is  beginning  to  admit  that  while  women  have  in 
comparatively  few  places  acquired  social  and  political 
rights  equal  to  those  legal  rights  possessed  by  men,  yet 
they  really  have  a  natural  right  to  a  free  existence 
and  to  an  unrestricted  opportunity  to  labor  as  seems  best 
to  them,  to  acquire  and  hold  separate  property,  and  to 
exercise  the  privilege  of  the  ballot.  In  saying  this,  men 
do  not  ordinarily  believe  or  contend  that  nature  has  con- 
ferred upon  either  men  or  women  the  right  to  vote,  but 
that  the  ideas  of  justice  acknowledged  by  the  community, 
or  its  moral  sense  expressed  in  other  things,  urges  that 
woman  ought  to  exercise  a  privilege  that  is  now  denied 


KING    MAMMON.  97 

to  her  by  the  laws.  The  terms  moral  right  or  ethical 
right  are  apparently  preferable  to  the  expression  that  has 
been  used  so  frequently,  but  as  the  phrase  selected  is  im- 
material when  its  meaning  is  understood,  the  good  old 
formula  of  natural  rights  will  be  retained  in  these  pages. 

As  the  nature  of  our  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  of  justice 
and  injustice,  is  involved  in  subsequent  investigations,  a 
brief  consideration  of  the  origin  of  ethical  perceptions  may 
not  be  inappropriate  here.  An  examination  into  the 
nature  of  what  people  name  morality  will  soon  convince 
the  untrammeled  thinker  that,  when  the  absolute  and  un- 
deviating  dicta  of  religious  doctrines  accepted  %s  the  fiat 
of  a  Deity  are  discarded,  the  foundations  of  morality, 
including  what  we  term  justice,  are  built  upon  shifting 
sands,  and  that  the  ethical  edifice  which  it  pleases  human 
beings  to  construct  thereon  is  at  any  moment  liable  to  be 
ingloriously  tumbled  into  fragments.  Having  only  one 
brief  lifetime  at  my  disposal,  I  do  not  intend  to  become 
involved  in  the  mystical  haze  and  speculative  uncertain- 
ties that  surround  all  philosophical  investigations  into 
the  ultimate  nature  of  right  and  wrong.  The  man  who 
is  not  prepared  to  enter  into  centuries  of  unprofitable  dis- 
cussion should  admit  that,  whenever  we  attempt  to  pro- 
vide or  discover  some  unvarying  or  absolute  standard 
by  which  humanity  can  for  all  time  determine  that  one 
thing  is  right  and  another  thing  wrong,  that  one  act  is 
just  and  another  unjust,  the  only  possible  result  will  be 
mental  confusion  and  the  conclusion  that  the  exact  deter- 
mination of  human  duty  is  a  problem  akin  to  the  deter- 
mination of  the  circumference  of  a  circle  when  its  diameter 
is  known.  Men  endlessly  approximate  to  the  solution  of 
each  problem,  but  will  the  exact  truth  ever  be  known  in 
either  case  ? 

When,  therefore,  some  thinkers  attempt  to  lay  down 
absolutely  fixed  principles  defining  right  and  wrong,  thus 
7 


98  KING   MAMMON. 

striving  to  evolve  ideas  that  will  perpetually  guide  strug- 
gling humanity  in  the  broad  way  of  justice ;  and  when 
other  cynical  commentators  on  these  doctrines  ridicule 
their  lofty  pretensions,  and  by  comparisons  between  the 
struggles  of  men  and  the  struggles  of  brutes  for  existence, 
indicate  that  no  right  but  the  right  of  strength  really  exists, 
and  that,  however  we  may  disguise  the  actual  condition 
of  humanity  by  sentimental  rhetoric,  natural  rights  are  a 
myth,  both  classes  seemingly  ignore  the  law  of  progress 
by  which  all  human  ideas  and  institutions  are  continually 
changed. 

It  is  trutf  that  the  human  intellect  becomes  confused  in 
attempting  an  exact  determination  of  the  principles  of 
morality,  and  that  no  absurdity  is  greater  than  the  at- 
tempt of  the  moralist  who  would  formulate  unchangeable 
doctrines  for  the  guidance  of  the  human  race  ;  but  it  is 
also  true  that  new  ideas  of  morality  are  continually  being 
developed  by  progressive  humanity,  and  former  notions 
of  right  and  wrong  changed  to  suit  the  more  modern  con- 
ceptions of  duty.  No  matter  whether  one  group  of  phil- 
osophers endeavor  to  analyze  these  ideas  and  to  deter- 
mine them  by  rigid  boundaries,  or  whether  another  sect 
ridicule  such  attempts  under  the  assumption  that  right 
and  wrong  can  never  be  discriminated,  the  people  move 
continually  onward,  without  regard  to  philosophical 
doctrines  or  even  plain  consistency,  changing  their  ideas 
of  justice  from  year  to  year,  and  evolving  new  rights  and 
wrongs  every  century. 

It  is  quite  true  that  Nature  cares  not  a  straw  whether 
men  eat  microbes,  whether  microbes  eat  men,  or  whether 
men  eat  men.  Man  in  his  savage  state  is  almost  equally 
indifferent,  except  that  he  universally  objects  to  being 
eaten.  His  moral  sense  does  not  revolt  at  the  idea  of 
killing  and  eating  his  fellow-creatures.  Cannibalism  is 
to  him  a  duty,  and  the  moral  satisfaction  which  some  of 


KING   MAMMON.  99 

our  ancestors  may  have  felt  in  devouring  their  neighbors 
was  probably  quite  as  strong  an  emotion  as  the  pleasure 
that  some  of  us  experience  in  the  present  age  by  reliev- 
ing the  necessities  of  the  deserving  poor.  What  seem  to 
modern  humanity  the  crimes  and  brutalities  of  the  past 
were  then  duties.  When  the  father  destroyed  his  own 
child,  the  act  was  not  considered  wrong,  for  the  accepted 
theory  at  that  time  made  the  child  its  father's  property, 
without  any  individual  rights,  and  he  might,  if  he  saw  fit, 
destroy  it  as  remorselessly  as  he  would  burn  the  stick  of 
wood  he  had  procured  for  his  fire.  Cannibalism  and  in- 
fanticide were  transferred  from  the  schedule  of  rights  to 
the  black  list  of  wrongs,  but  ethical  ideas  still  held  the 
woman,  whether  wife  or  daughter,  as  a  slave — a  thing  to 
be  bought  and  sold,  treated  as  a  beast  of  burden,  and 
beaten  like  a  horse  or  a  dog  for  any  rebellious  spirit. 

Those  savage  ideas  have  been  modified  by  the  lapse 
of  time,  but  at  least  one-half  of  the  men  now  living  in 
the  United  States  still  cannot  think  that  woman  is  a  hu- 
man creature,  entitled  to  the  privilege  of  directing  her 
own  efforts  as  absolutely  unrestricted  as  those  of  a  man 
under  like  circumstances. 

It  is  only  a  few  years  since  the  ideas  of  educating 
women,  of  permitting  them  to  transact  business  in  their 
own  names  and  rights  free  from  slavery  to  the  husband, 
and  of  entering  trades  and  professions  hitherto  monopo- 
lized by  men  were  ridiculed  and  denounced. 

It  is  evident  that  all  these  men  of  the  past  and  present, 
regarding  woman  either  as  an  absolute  slave,  or  merely 
as  a  being  not  entitled  to  the  same  political  and  social 
privileges  that  a  man  exercises,  have  usually  been  per- 
fectly sincere  in  their  convictions.  Men  held  women  as 
slaves  in  the  past,  and  they  object  to  any  further  privi- 
leges being  extended  to  the  female  sex  in  the  present 
because  their  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  of  justice  and  in- 


IOO  KING  MAMMON. 

justice,  develop  slowly,  their  political  and  social  institu- 
tions at  any  period  of  race  history  being  no  better  than 
the  men  themselves,  and  not  because  they  wilfully  vio- 
late their  moral  sentiments  from  a  consciously  selfish 
motive.  During  the  existence  of  female  slavery  in  the 
past,  even  the  women  did  not  consider  their  condition 
unjust,  and  they  were  quite  as  complacent  when  bought 
and  sold  for  property  as  they  have  been  since  that  time. 
The  same  conservative  satisfaction  with  existing  condi- 
tions is  noticeable  among  many  women  in  the  later 
movements  toward  a  complete  emancipation  of  the  sex. 
The  last  two  centuries  have  evolved  the  general  belief 
that  slavery  is  wrong.  In  ancient  history  every  person 
is  either  a  master  or  a  slave,  and  man  has  no  conception 
of  equal  rights.  At  this  day  among  the  rising  genera- 
tion a  conception  of  the  mere  possibility  of  slavery  is 
formed  with  difficulty,  so  great  has  been  the  change  in 
human  thought  and  feeling.  A  little  girl  reading  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin"  within  the  last  decade  said  :  "  Mamma,  is 
it  true  that  the  negroes  were  slaves,  or  is  this  book  only 
a  story  ?'*'  It  is  difficult  even  for  people  of  mature  under- 
standing, living  only  thirty  years  since  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion  terminated,  to  comprehend  the  mental  condi- 
tion of  able  thinkers  like  John  C.  Calhoun,  Jefferson 
Davis,  and  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  when  they  gravely 
maintained  that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution,  or  to  un- 
derstand how  the  Declaration  of  Independence  could  have 
been  signed  one  hundred  years  ago  without  a  blush  of 
shame  by  men  who  owned  slaves,  and  who  afterwards 
adopted  a  section  of  the  Constitution  which  placed  side 
by  side  in  the  two  great  documents  of  our  country's  early 
history  these  two  inconsistent  statements  : 

"We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident  :  that  all  men 
are  created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Crea- 


V 

KING  MAMMON.  IOI 


tor  with  certain  unalienable  rights  ^tjha^arnong;  th 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happvness.  "' 


these  are 


"  No  person  held  to  service'  or  labqn;  *ir,  O^'Q  sjatfe^'  -un- 
der the  laws  thereof,  escaping-  ifrtosanfetrie?,'  shall',  'iw'  con- 
sequence of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  discharged 
from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on 
claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be 
due." 

The  sentence  from  the  Declaration  means  liberty  for 
white  men,  and  the  section  of  the  Constitution  describes 
the  kind  of  liberty  which  the  whites  proposed  to  bestow 
upon  the  blacks.  When  the  patriots  who  founded  the 
government  of  the  United  States  could  thus  demand  liberty 
for  themselves  and  inflict  slavery  upon  the  negro,  whom 
they  apparently  regarded  as  a  mere  animal  and  not  as  a 
man,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  the  progressive  thinker 
should  not  greatly  reverence  the  deeds  and  institutions 
of  his  ancestors,  and  should,  regard  with  contempt  the 
idolatrous  worship  of  the  conservative  for  established  in- 
stitutions and  precedents.  The  cold-blooded,  unsympa- 
thetic habit  of  regarding  the  negro  as  property  —  as#  thing 
like  a  dog  or  a  horse,  incapable  of  human  rights  —  is  so 
repugnant  to  our  sense  of  justice  in  its  recent  develop- 
ment, that  judicial  decisions  embodying  the  status  of  the 
slaves,  although  regarded  at  that  time  as  a  perfectly  equi- 
table exposition  of  just  laws,  impress  us  now  with  a  feel- 
ing of  disgust  for  the  tyranny  of  such  opinions  and  of  con- 
tempt for  that  conception  of  human  duty.  The  people  of 
to-day  will  not  admire  the  kind  of  justice  enunciated  in  the 
following  decisions  '  from  various  courts  on  human  rights 
involved  in  slavery,  during  its  history  in  this  country. 

"  A  contract  to  seta  slave  free  on  a  certain  day,  on 
certain  conditions,  whether  made  with  the  vendor  on  sale 
and  purchase  of  the  slave,  or  with  the  slave  himself,  is 

1  Selected  from  M'Clellan's  "  Republicanism  in  America." 


IO2  KING   MAMMON. 

an  executory  contract'  for1  emancipation,  and  a  specific 
performance  of  it  cannot  be  enforced  by  the  slave  in  a 
comi  of  law  or  8qvilty./'-:i 3  Arkansas,  p.  399. 

"A  conveyance  of  lauu'  and  slaves  in  trust  to  allow  the 
slaves  to  occupy  the  land  and  receive  the  profits  thereof, 
and  of  their  labor,  is  void." — 18  Georgia,  p.  722. 

"A  bequest  of  freedom  to  a  slave  is  void,  in  consequence 
of  his  incapacity  to  take  under  the  will." — 21  Alabama, 
P.  237- 

"A  bequest  of  slaves,  with  a  provision  by  which  they 
may  be  supported  without  working  like  other  slaves,  is  a 
violation  of  the  policy  of  the  State  and  void." — 3  James' 
Equity,  North  Carolina,  p.  141. 

"Slaves  in  Virginia  were  real  estate  in  1777,  and  de- 
scended to  the  eldest  son." — i  Munroe,  Kentucky,  p.  25. 

A  frank  consideration  of  these  historical  facts  should 
teach  us  that  if  there  exists  any  such  thing  as  absolute 
right  or  absolute  justice  in  human  conduct,  the  nature  of 
that  morality  is  beyond  our  comprehension  and  its  inves- 
tigation similar  to  our  imperfect  conceptions  of  matter, 
space,  and  duration.  Indeed,  we  may  select  any  idea  or 
any  fact  in  the  universe  of  thought  or  human  knowledge 
from  which  as  a  starting-point  to  project  our  minds  in 
the  search  for  what  we  call  truth,  and,  sooner  or  later, 
we  reach  the  incomprehensible.  In  space  we  reach  the 
idea  of  something  which  perpetually  recedes  when  we 
attempt  to  establish  a  limit,  and  in  which  our  minds  are 
lost  in  the  vain  attempt  to  penetrate  or  comprehend 
fathomless  abysses,  from  which  we  return  to  our  rela- 
tively minute  surroundings  with  a  queer,  puzzled  sense 
of  our  own  incapability  and  weakness.  Considering 
matter,  we  evolve  the  idea  of  divisibility  and  pursue  it 
downward  to  what  we  name  atoms  ;  yet  we  fail  to  really 
understand  how  anything  which  is  at  first  theoretically  sus- 
ceptible of  infinite  division  becomes  in  the  end  either  the- 
oretically or  actually  indivisible.  Leaving  the  infinitely 
small  and  attempting  the  infinitely  great,  we  consider  an 


KING   MAMMON.  103 

illimitable  space  that  is  not  comprehensible  to  our  under- 
standing, and  suppose  it  to  be  filled  with  an  equally  illimi- 
table body  of  ether  that  is  not  perceptible  by  our  senses, 
and  which  is  not  really  within  our  comprehension  more 
than  light  to  an  entirely  isolated  race  of  men  born  blind,  or 
the  odor  of  musk  to  a  vegetable,  or  sound  to  a  man  without 
hearing  and  who  is  without  associates  to  describe  the  phe- 
nomenon. 

Abandoning  the  mysteries  of  matter  for  the  mysteries 
of  time,  we  project  our  mkids  far  into  the  dim  re- 
cesses of  the  past  and  again  into  the  misty  vistas  of  the 
future,  failing,  on  the  one  hand,  to  conceive  anything 
but  an  eternity,  and,  on  the  other,  to  really  grasp 
the  idea  of  an  existence  or  duration  which  has  neither 
beginning  nor  end.  We  grant  to  ourselves,  in  the 
first  place,  the  mental  ability  to  follow  the  stream  of 
time  or  cross  the  ocean  of  space  in  any  direction  and  to 
any  point  or  date,  however  greatly  it  may  be  removed 
from  us,  yet  when  our  minds  reach  the  station  assigned, 
there  is  always  something  beyond  ;  and,  at  the  end  of  our 
ineffectual  investigations,  the  really  earnest  searcher  for 
truth  is  compelled  to  admit  that  he  cannot  be  sure,  with 
the  limits  set  to  his  mental  conceptions,  whether  the  uni- 
verse, as  he  beholds  it,  is  an  illusion  and  "  the  baseless 
fabric  of  a  vision,"  or  whether  the  world  about  us  has  a 
real  existence  outside  of  our  own  minds,  and  the  portion 
which  we  see  and  understand  is  only  a  minute  fragment 
of  the  greater  world  which  would  be  revealed  to  us  if 
our  sense  perceptions  and  our  understanding  were  de- 
veloped so  as  to  make  known  to  us  the  numberless  hidden 
mysteries  that  surround  our  existence.  The  universe  of 
the  earth-worm  or  that  of  the  blind  fish  of  the  Mam- 
moth Cave,  perceived  by  the  limited  sense  development 
of  these  creatures,  is  plainly  not  the  universe  conceived 
by  human  beings.  The  world  revealed  to  civilized  man 


104  KING   MAMMON. 

is  not  exactly  the  world  perceived  by  his  savage  an- 
cestors. What,  then,  would  the  universe  become  if  hu- 
man beings  possessed  thirty  senses  instead  of  five,  or 
even  if  they  possessed  a  sixth  sense ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  what  would  it  become  to  a  man  deprived  of  his 
five  senses  without  destroying  his  life  ?  The  great  prob- 
lem of  the  real  nature  of  the  universe,  and  the  questions, 
what  is  man?  whence  does  he  come?  whither  does  he  go? 
are  not  easily  answered.  The  reverence  and  humility 
with  which  a  really  great  rr>an  approaches  such  subjects 
are  grandly  displayed  in  the  words  of  the  distinguished 
scientist  prefixed  to  this  chapter.  It  is  often  genuine 
wisdom  to  understand  when  to  acknowledge  that  we  do 
not  know. 

Let  not  weak  humanity,  therefore,  become  foolishly 
dogmatic  in  the  declaration  of  eternal  verities,  for  we 
know  not.  There  may  be  neither  matter  nor  motion 
except  in  our  own  illusions,  and  there  may  be  a  thousand 
realities  surrounding  us  which  we,  poor  earth-worms  of 
a  larger  growth,  are  unable  to  perceive  or  comprehend. 
Thus  it  is  in  our  conceptions  of  justice. 

Of  absolute  or  ultimate  justice  between  men  we  can 
form  no  real  conception,  for  our  minds  are  limited  by 
the  slow  development  and  progress  of  the  race,  as  the 
sense-perception  of  an  animal  is  limited  by  its  position 
in  the  scale  of  existence  from  the  infusoria  to  man.  To 
some  of  our  ancestors  cannibalism  was  right ;  to  others, 
farther  advanced,  cannibalism  was  wrong,  but  slavery 
and  infanticide  were  right ;  to  men  existing  in  the  final 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  all  these  former  customs 
of  the  human  race  appear  wrong.  May  it  not  be  true 
that  some  of  the  customs  which  appear  entirely  just  to 
men  of  the  present  will  seem  vicious,  cruel,  and  barbar- 
ous to  their  descendants  ? 

The  candid  thinker  will  be  forced  to  admit,  after  a  care- 


KING   MAMMON.  IO5 

ful  consideration  of  history,  that  in  the  past  men  have 
never  had  more  than  a  dim  comprehension  of  justice,  which 
has  brightened  as  they  approached  the  present,  but  which 
is,  almost  certainly,  still  enveloped  in  the  mists  that  sur- 
round an  imperfect  understanding  in  its  development  from 
a  condition  akin  to  the  mind  of  a  brute  to  a  finality  which 
may  approach  to  the  perfection  of  a  God.  The  justice  of 
to-day  is  not  the  justice  of  yesterday,  and  it  will  not  be 
the  justice  of  to-morrow. I  Justice  is  a  sentiment  which 
depends  upon  the  progress  of  the  race ;  and,  as  any 
human  being  will  regard  it  from  the  moral  condition  of 
his  own  development,  no  rules  can  be  deduced  from 
investigations  into  ethical  principles  that  can  ever  be  of 
value  as  a  guide  to  humanity,  for  our  ideas  of  right  and 
wrong  will  change  as  we  progress,  and  our  habits  and 
customs,  our  other  social  institutions,  our  governments 
and  our  religions  will  change  with  them.  The  justice  of 
the  past  is  made  up  of  exploded  doctrines  and  abandoned 
ideas.  The  justice  of  the  future  is  a  mystical  heaven  that 
may  be  seen  dimly  in  visions  by  the  prophets  of  to-day  ; 
but  this  heaven  on  earth  is  no  more  comprehensible  to  the 
masses  than  the  docility  of  the  modern  carriage-horse  was 
perceptible  to  his  three-toed  prehistoric  ancestor.  The 
justice  of  the  present  is  merely  that  average  condition 
of  the  human  intellect  to  which  men  have  been  brought 
in  their  onward  progress,  and  by  which  they  judge  their 

1  Few  writers  on  social  questions  display  as  much  conception  of  the 
real  power  of  moral  progress  as  Winkelblech — "  Carl  Mario  " — one  of 
the  fairest  and  most  comprehensive  thinkers  upon  modern  conditions. 
Benjamin  Kidd  in  "  Social  Evolution  "  attributes  to  religion  the  power 
that  effects  social  transformations.  In  the  ordinary  definitions  of 
religion  and  morality,  however,  the  former  is  merely  the  effect  of  the 
latter,  and  it  changes  with  the  developing  intellect  and  morality  of  the 
people.  The  gods  of  every  race  of  human  beings  are  creatures  and  not 
creators.  Somewhere  in  his  great  work  Buckle  wrote,  "  In  what  maybe 
called  the  innate  and  original  morals  of  mankind,  there  is,  so  far  as  we 
are  aware,  no  progress."  Morality  is  difficult  to  define  ;  but  if  human 
beings  of  the  present  are  more  moral  than  gorillas  or  tigers,  Buckle's 
observation  is  not  true. 


106  KING   MAMMON. 

social  relations  and  pronounce  them  either  good  or 
bad. 

Men,  if  we  may  suppose  that  the  progress  of  humantiy 
tends  upward,  have  inflicted  and  defended  wrongs  in  the 
past,  because  they  did  not  know  those  wrongs  existed  ;  for 
to  their  deficient  intelligence  and  moral  sentiment,  wrong 
was  right.  Periodically  in  the  lives  of  nations  a  time 
comes  when  the  minds  of  the  people  cease  to  admit  that 
some  principle  is  right,  and  out  of  this  doubt  grows  the 
conviction  that  it  is  a  wrong. 

New  ideas  are  born,  and,  like  all  births,  the  inception 
of  new  life  brings  pain.  Spasms  marked  the  transition  in 
France  when  the  divine  right  of  king  and  nobles  became, 
in  the  minds  of  the  people,  a  diabolical  wrong. 

Convulsions  in  the  United  States  thirty  years  ago  almost 
destroyed  the  nation,  when  its  people  ceased  to  think  that 
slavery  was  right  for  the  black  man  and  that  only  whites 
were  justly  entitled  to  freedom.  Discontent  and  disturb- 
ance among  the  people  invariably  accompany  these 
changing  thoughts  and  herald  the  approach  of  that  out- 
ward transformation  in  their  declarations  of  justice, 
denoted  by  a  change  of  social  institutions. 

Year  by  year,  slowly  and  steadily,  the  real  change  goes 
on  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  transforming  their  ideas  of 
right  to  a  conception  of  wrong,  till  a  day  comes  when 
they  feel  that  the  political  and  social  institutions  they 
have  accepted  from  their  ancestors  and  revered  as  the 
acme  of  justice  are  really  the  enunciation  of  injustice. 

Entertaining  this  opinion  of  social  progress  and  the 
nature  of  justice,  I  shall  avoid  all  attempts  to  analyze 
the  moral  sentiments  or  to  indicate  any  conception  of  the 
real  attributes  of  political  and  social  justice.  Any  effort 
of  that  kind  would  inevitably  be  barren  of  immediate 
influence,  because  it  would  merely  represent  the  writer's 
conception  of  justice,  and  would  be  neither,  absolute 


KING   MAMMON. 

justice  nor  the  average  conception  of  justice  entertained 
by  humanity  of  the  present. 

Truth,  it  is  said,  lies  at  the  bottom  of  a  well.  Absolute 
justice,  therefore,  which  is  merely  a  portion  of  the  illimit- 
able, eternal,  and  unknown  truth  that  forms  man's  environ- 
ment, is  to  be  found  in  the  same  place,  and  when  curious 
investigators  lean  over  the  well-curb  and  peer  curiously 
downward  to  discover  the  real  nature  of  justice,  they  see 
merely  their  own  reflections  upon  the  surface  of  the  water, 
while  absolute  justice  remains  concealed  in  its  depths. 
The  greatest  philosopher  of  the  nineteenth  century  has 
not  really  discovered  justice  in  his  treatise  bearing  that 
name,  but  the  well  into  which  his  mental  vision  was  pro- 
jected has  thrown  back  only  the  image  of  Herbert 
Spencer's  mind. 

Such  is  now  the  inevitable  result  of  those  investigations, 
and  the  future  seems  likely  to  be  equally  barren.  The 
slow  progress  of  the  race  continually  brings  into  our 
minds  new  and  better  ideas  of  human  duty,  and  a  clearer 
comprehension  of  the  adaptation  of  earth  to  our  needs  ;  but 
of  the  real  mystery — the  absolute  nature  of  man  and  his 
environment,  and  the  absolute  justice  to  which  his  con- 
duct should  conform — we  know  nothing.  The  endless 
discussions  of  mental  and  moral  philosophy  leave  us  at 
the  end  of  two  thousand  years'  consideration  of  these  prob- 
lems in  quite  as  much  doubt  concerning  the  verities  of 
man's  origin,  existence,  environment,  and  destiny  as  ever 
vexed  the  minds  of  the  first  heathen  philosophers.  Re- 
garded as  mental  gymnastics,  the  discussions  maybe  use- 
ful ;  they  bring  into  every  mind  kindly  toleration  for  every 
belief,  and  they  are  the  natural  result  of  man's  longing 
for  universal  knowledge  ;  but  as  a  means  of  improving  his 
condition  or  contributing  to  the  real  progress  of  the  race, 
they  are  barren  of  result.  In  the  language  of  Macaulay, 
we  are  walking  on  a  treadmill  whenever,  by  the  ordinary 


IC8  KING   MAMMON. 

methods  of  logic,  we  inquire  "what  is  the  highest  good, 
whether  pain  be  an  evil,  whether  all  things  be  fated, 
whether  we  can  be  certain  of  anything,  and  whether  we 
can  be  certain  that  we  are  certain  of  nothing."  We 
revolve  in  our  minds  a  thousand  times  the  same  inquiry 
and  the  same  argument,  but  our  investigation  eventually 
terminates  with  the  same  uncertainty. 

Whenever  man  has  tried  to  estimate  the  infinite  by  the 
finite,  he  has  been  compelled,  sooner  or  later,  to  lay  down 
his  measuring  rule,  no  matter  how  great  its  length  in  terms 
of  human  ability,  and  to  confess  at  last  the  impossibility 
of  his  undertaking.  Therefore,  in  the  ethical  discussions 
contained  in  this  volume,  there  will  be  no  attempt  to 
formulate  undeviating  principles  for  the  guidance  of  hu- 
manity. There  will  be  no  appeals  to  a  mystical  and 
unreal  justice  of  the  future,  but  merely  a  comparison 
between  the  different  social  institutions  of  the  present, 
showing  wherein  some  of  those  we  maintain  are  incon- 
sistent with  that  spirit  of  fairness  or  justice  which  we  have 
already  applied  to  others.  Social  institutions  are  never 
changed  evenly  all  along  the  line,  and  as  our  forefathers 
of  the  Revolution  inconsistently  declared  that  all  men 
should  be  free  and  independent,  while  at  the  same  time 
they  owned  slaves,  so  it  will  be  found  that  the  people  of 
the  present  day  are  equally  inconsistent  in  maintaining 
tyranny  in  one  place  while  they  deny  identically  the 
same  principle  in  another.  The  only  appeal  will  be  to 
that  sense  of  right  and  duty  which  men  now  usually 
recognize  as  fit  to  govern  their  actions,  a  feeling  which 
will  confer  upon  every  human  being  ultimately  the 
"natural  right  "to  a  more  equitable  existence  than  has 
ever  been  conferred  in  the  dark  history  of  the  past. 

Man's  natural  rights  have  their  origin  in  the  mind  of  man 
himself,  and  his  conception  of  them  will  change  from 
century  to  century  ;  but  the  very  practical  and  well  estab- 


KING   MAMMON.  IOQ 

lishcd  fact  remains,  in  spite  of  this  shifting,  changing 
uncertainty  as  to  the  real  nature  of  his  rights,  that  at  any 
period  in  his  career,  for  those  particular  privileges  which 
he  then  considers  natural  rights,  he  will  fight  like  a  demon 
and  shed  the  last  drop  of  his  heart's  blood.  Of  their 
origin  he  may  be  uncertain,  but  of  their  existence  he  feels 
quite  sure.  The  determination  of  these  rights,  according 
to  ideas  commonly  accepted  in  the  present  advancement, 
involves  a  comparison  of  existing  institutions  and  prin- 
ciples sanctioned  by  the  approval  of  civilization,  for  men 
often  admit  in  one  instance  a  principle  which  they  deny 
in  another,  following  the  absurd  example  deduced  from 
the  early  history  of  this  country.  The  same  inconsistency 
exists  in  the  declarations  and  institutions  of  the  present ; 
and  the  appeals  which  the  writer  expects  to  make  will  urge 
men  to  apply  to  all  social  institutions  the  doctrines  of 
right  and  wrong  which  they  have  already,  in  recent  years, 
applied  to  a  portion  of  them. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

DEAD    MEN'S    TYRANNY. 

"  Can  the  poor  man  cultivate  the  earth  for  himself  ?  No  ;  for  the  right 
of  the  first  occupant  has  become  the  right  of  property.  Can  he  gather  the 
fruits  which  the  hand  of  God  ripens  on  the  path  of  man  ?  No;  for  like 
the  soil,  the  fruits  have  been  appropriated.  Can  he  draw  water  from  a 
spring  enclosed  in  a  field  ?  No  ;  for  the  proprietor  of  the  field  is  the  owner 
of  the  fountain.  Can  he,  exhausted  by  fatigue  and  without  a  refuge,  lie 
down  to  sleep  upon  the  pavement  of  a  street  ?  No  ;  for  there  are  laws 
against  vagabondage.  What,  then,  can  the  unhappy  man  do  ?  He  will  say: 
'  I  have  hands  to  work  with,  I  have  intelligence,  I  have  youth,  I  have 
strength  ;  take  all  this  and  in  return  give  me  a  morsel  of  bread?  But 
even  here  the  poor  man  may  be  answered,  '  I  have  no  work  to  give  you? 
What  is  he  then  to  do  ?  " — Louis  BLANC. 

EVERY  man  who  bequeaths  property  is  a  tyrant  on  his 

death-bed.1     The  aggregate  tyranny  of  men  in  their  dying 

1 A  Virginia  colonel,  who  died  about  twenty-five  years  ago,  in  Amelia 


1 10  KING   MAMMONc 

moments  has  caused  more  misery  throughout  the  world 
than  all  the  oppressions  of  its  political  rulers,  for  when 
unavoidable  hunger  and  cold  afflict  human  beings  within 
the  sight  of  unearned  comfort  and  plenty,  do  not  these 
beings  suffer  the  tortures  of  the  damned  ?  Yet,  while  inflict- 
ing the  tyranny  of  the  death-bed  over  surviving  humanity, 
men  have  been  almost  uniformly  praised  for  possessing 
the  highest  virtues  in  thus  providing  a  store  of  wealth  for 
direct  posterity.  The  edict  of  the  death-bed  is  uncon- 
scious tyranny,  and  sorrow  instead  of  anger  must  be  the 
feeling  which  it  merits  from  the  demands  of  progressive 
justice.  Society  will  outgrow  this  form  of  wrong  as  it  has 
already  abandoned  the  horrors  of  cannibalism  and  slavery, 
but  man's  innocence  of  intentional  wrong  and  his  imperfect 
conception  of  human  duty  do  not  lessen  the  inevitable 
afflictions  that  follow  his  unconsciously  evil  acts.  The 
slavery  of  the  disinherited  to  the  masters  of  wealth  suc- 
cession, with  all  the  degradation,  among  the  masters,  of 
idleness,  pride,  profligacy,  cruelty,  and  corruption,  and  all 
the  degradation  of  ignorance,  coarseness,  brutality,  re- 
sentment, and  destructiveness  among  the  slaves,  may  be 
observed  at  the  present  time  in  every  civilized  nation  quite 
as  distinctly,  in  spite  of  the  ameliorating  effects  of  educa- 
tion and  progress  toward  democratic  government,  as  in 
the  history  of  negro  slavery  in  the  United  States.  The 
essential  feature  of  negro  slavery  on  the  part  of  the  slave 
was  the  inheritance  of  subjection  and  the  absence  of  op- 
portunities ;  on  the  part  of  the  master,  it  was  the  inherit- 
ance of  power  and  privilege,  unearned  by  any  efforts  of 

county,  demanded,  under  penalty  of  cutting  off  from  all  his  possessions, 
that  his  widow  have  him  put  in  an  open  coffin  in  a  clump  of  woods  near 
the  house,  and  leave  him  there  for  six  weeks.  Every  morning  and  even- 
ing of  that  time  she  was  to  come  to  him  and  brush  his  hair  and  whiskers. 
Luckily  the  colonel  shuffled  off  his  mortal  coil  in  the  middle  of  a  very 
cold  winter, so  he  "kept."  His  widow  was  able  to  carry  out  his  wishes, 
therefore,  and  came  into  all  his  property. — Current  Newspapers. 


KING   MAMMON.  I  I  I 

his  own.  If  some  men  had  not  been  born  slaves  and 
others  born  masters,  slavery  would  have  extinguished 
itself.  If  some  men  were  not  born  slaves  and  others 
born  masters  under  the  doctrines  of  heredity  and  suc- 
cession that  are  still  maintained,  the  world  would  not 
be  in  a  ferment  of  excited  thought  with  impending  re- 
volution, peaceful  or  bloody,  in  every  civilized  nation. 
In  the  advanced  ranks  of  humanity,  it  is  now  universally 
denied  that  the  king's  son  shall  be  king,  independent  of 
his  own  qualifications,  merely  because  his  father  held  that 
power.  In  England  and  Germany  the  thrones  are  already 
shaking,  and  it  is  only  the  fact  that  the  power  of  the 
sovereign  has  been  closely  restricted  that  prevents  the 
immediate  transition  to  democracy.  Similarly,  in  con- 
sidering the  wealth-power  of  the  world,  it  will  soon  be 
denied  that  the  son  shall  possess  wealth  because  his  father 
did,  irrespective  of  his  own  ability  and  efforts.  It  will 
also  be  denied  that  the  son  of  a  poor  man,  whose  poverty 
may  or  may  not  have  been  due  to  lack  of  energy  and  ability, 
shall  on  that  account  inherit  not  only  the  poverty  of  his 
ancestor,  but  the  lack  of  opportunities  for  his  own  efforts, 
and  subjection  to  unmerited  power  conferred  upon  those 
who  have  succeeded  to  wealth.  It  cannot  be  too  fre- 
quently repeated  that  the  wealth-successions  of  the  present 
mean  aristocracy  among  a  portion  of  the  people ;  that 
aristocracy  among  a  portion  means  serfdom  among  the 
remainder ;  and  that  a  society  composed  of  masters  and 
slaves,  no  matter  how  that  condition  be  established,  can 
develop  only  discontent  and  warfare.  A  few  men  can- 
not own  the  earth  and  leave  other  inhabitants  free  citizens. 
The  accident  of  birth  is  no  justification  for  the  claim  of 
property.  Our  tyranny  may  be  unconscious  wrong,  but 
if  God  holds  men  responsible  for  the  wrongs  that  have 
been  inflicted  in  the  past,  heaven  will  not  be  densely 
populated  by  our  ancestors. 


112  KING   MAMMON. 

So  far  as  the  ancestor  is  concerned,  his  rights,  natural, 
though  not  legal,  terminate  at  the  grave.  When  he  is 
done  with  this  world,  no  matter  what  disposition  is  made 
of  his  property,  the  result  cannot  affect  him.  If  he  leaves 
a  palace,  it  may  be  blown  up  with  dynamite  and  he  loses 
nothing.  If  he  leaves  a  ship,  it  may  be  sunk  or  burned 
and  he  does  not  suffer.  His  wealth  may  be  given  to  one 
or  given  to  all,  or  absolutely  vaporized  in  the  form  of 
what  is  named  destruction,  and  the  result  affects  him  not 
a  particle.  A  dead  man  has  no  rights.  The  ancestor 
cannot  justly  control  the  disposition  of  his  property  one 
instant  beyond  his  own  existence,  nor  rightfully  transfer 
it  when  he  regards  his  dissolution  as  immediate  and  in- 
evitable. No  descendant  has  any  special  or  exclusive 
right  to  the  wealth  of  decedents,  beyond  a  right  that  may 
have  arisen  from  his  own  efforts  in  producing  such  wealth, 
or  from  the  natural  claims  of  helpless  infancy,  acknowl- 
edged by  the  higher  types  of  the  brutes  as  well  as  by  man. 
In  all  the  history  of  successions,  one  or  the  other  of  these 
privileges  has  been  acknowledged  by  society.  The  an- 
cient rule  made  the  descendants  natural  successors ;  the 
modern  laws  make  the  ancestor  a  dictator  beyond  the 
grave. 

Efforts  have  been  made  to  compromise  or  balance 
these  conflicting  claims,  but  in  all  of  the  laws  heretofore 
enacted,  the  doctrine  has  been  approved,  that  if  one  man 
can  gain  possession  of  any  part  of  the  earth  and  establish 
a  claim  to  it,  equitable  or  inequitable,  among  his  con- 
temporaries, the  future  right  of  use  or  occupancy  of  that 
particular  portion  of  the  earth  does  not  exist  anywhere 
outside  of  that  man  or  his  blood  relatives  or  his  legatees. 
Theoretically,  his  possession  might  be  the  United  States 
of  America  at  a  period  when  he  was  the  sole  inhabitant, 
and  his  descendants  or  legatees  at  the  present  time  could 
legally  own  the  entire  territory  in  spite  of  the  existence, 


KING   MAMMON.  113 

needs,  and  rights  of  nearly  seventy  millions  of  other  people 
inhabiting  the  same  territory  with  them  after  the  death  of 
the  original  claimant.  Practically,  the  doctrine  of  wealth 
heredity  involves  the  control  of  large  portions  of  every 
city  in  the  civilized  world  by  men  who  never  did  anything 
to  entitle  them  to  such  power,  and  who  owe  their  position 
to  the  accident  of  birth.  Their  ancestors  happened  to 
secure  tracts  of  land  which  became  valuable  by  the  pro- 
gress of  society  and  the  existence  and  needs  of  other  men 
bom  after  their  decease,  and  the  descendants  retain  pos- 
session of  them  as  though  equitable  or  inequitable  relations 
of  the  present  exist  between  the  men  of  the  past,  dead  and 
mouldering  in  their  graves,  and  not  between  the  sentient 
human  beings  of  an  actual  earth-occupancy.  The  real 
question  of  property-rights  is  not  what  any  ancestor,  dead, 
dusty,  and  forgotten,  may  have  done  to  acquire  a  claim 
to  any  portion  of  earth,  but  what  the  proposed  successors 
of  the  present  owners  are  doing,  or  are  likely  to  do,  to 
establish  a  just  control  for  themselves  among  their  con- 
temporaries. The  origin  of  all  existing  land  titles  is  to  be 
found  in  theft,  so  far  as  history  reveals,  and  how  many 
times  that  form  of  wealth  was  stolen,  or  how  many  robber- 
owners  existed  before  history  was  written,  only  the  mys- 
terious Spirit  of  the  Universe  can  determine.  The  lands 
of  Europe  were  taken  by  robber-hordes,  and  the  lands 
of  America  were  stolen  from  the  Indians,  the  Indians, 
themselves,  probably,  having  dispossessed  other  races 
existing  before  them.  The  origin  of  titles  need  not  con- 
cern us;  for  no  title  to  earthly  possessions,  whether  justly 
or  unjustly  acquired,  can  rightfully  extend  beyond  the 
existence  of  its  owner  or  be  transmitted  to  a  successor. 
It  matters  not  whether  our  ancestors  were  thieves  or 
honest  men  ;  the  earth  must  be  equitably  devoted  to  the 
uses  and  objects  of  existing  human  beings,  and  this  prin- 
ciple extends  not  only  to  land,  but  to  all  other  forms  of 


114  KING   MAMMON. 

wealth  into  which  land  has  been  transformed.  Whenever 
we  admit  that  self-effort  is  the  foundation  of  a  just  claim 
to  wealth,  the  doctrine  of  wealth  succession  becomes  a  lie. 
Believing  those  doctrines  of  succession  to  be  not  only 
unjust,  but  their  continuance  a  danger  to  society  in  its 
present  status,  the  author  has  selected  wealth-heredity 
as  the  indefensible  point  in  the  present  privileges  of 
property,  for  it  can  be  defended  only  by  assuming  that 
whatever  a  man  owns  once  he  owns  forever.  The  reader 
will  desire  to  know,  however,  what  principle  can  be  sub- 
stituted for  those  now  recognized  in  the  distribution  of 
the  property  of  decedents.  Exact  justice  is  beyond 
human  laws,  but  we  can,  at  least,  adopt  laws  not  so 
grossly  inconsistent  and  unfair  as  the  present  statutes 
relating  to  successions.  If  the  dying  man  has  no  right 
to  dictate  the  use  of  any  part  of  earth  beyond  his  exist- 
ence, we  should  abolish  the  privilege  of  bequest.  If  the 
descendants,  or  other  relatives,  have  no  right  of  succession 
beyond  what  is  developed  by  their  own  efforts  or  assist- 
ance in  producing  the  wealth  abandoned  by  the  dead  man, 
that  fact  should  be  taken  into  consideration  by  society  in 
determining  the  distribution.  The  power  of  determining 
the  future  use  of  a  fortune  should  rest  neither  with  the 
dying  man  nor  with  his  relatives,  for  society  in  general 
is  concerned  in  the  result.  Neither  the  tyranny  of  the 
dead  nor  the  false  claims  of  the  living  should  be  recog- 
nized. Mere  consanguinity  should  count  for  nothing. 
Friends  often  assist  decedents  during  their  lifetime  more 
than  distant  relatives  help  them.  The  succession  of  in-- 
dividuals  in  any  way  to  great  bodies  of  unearned  wealth 
should  be  prevented  by  restrictions  upon  its  transmission 
from  one  generation  to  the  next  under  the  form  of  private 
ownership,  and  what  is  essentially  the  accumulation  of 
public  effort  should  go  back  to  public  control  at  the  ex- 
piration of  every  lifetime. 


KING   MAMMON.  115 

Accordingly  the  privilege  of  making  wills  should  be 
abolished,  and  a  maximum  limit  should  be  set,  first  on 
the  aggregate  amount  of  wealth  in  one  estate  to  which 
individual  heirs  might  succeed  ;  second,  to  the  amount  of 
wealth  that  any  one  person  might  inherit  from  that  estate. 
Within  these  limits,  the  decree  of  a  court  should  make  the 
distribution  of  inheritable  wealth  in  accordance  with  the 
written  testimony  of  the  dead  man,  left  in  place  of  a  will, 
and  the  oral  testimony  of  survivors  relating  to  the  merits 
of  any  claims  in  the  estate.  Practically,  the  courts  of  the 
United  States  are  already  approaching  this  view  of  suc- 
cessions, except  in  limiting  the  individual  succession,  for 
the  wills  of  wealthy  decedents,  under  the  pleas  of  tech- 
nical invalidity,  undue  influence,  and  insanity,  are  so 
frequently  broken  that  they  have  ceased  to  be  really  much 
more  than  testimony  concerning  the  dead  man's  ideas  of 
an  appropriate  distribution  of  the  property.  The  deci- 
sions of  juries  and  courts  in  wealth-successions  are  now 
involved  in  a  chaos  of  inconsistency  which  will  become 
worse  instead  of  better  until  new  principles  are  estab- 
lished. 

All  wealth  beyond  the  inheritable  limit  set  by  law 
should  escheat  to  public  ownership — in  this  country  to 
the  United  States  government.  Every  large  fortune  in 
the  nation,  like  those  accumulated  by  Gould,  Vanderbilt, 
Rockefeller,  or  Astor,  is  made  indirectly  by  minute  con- 
tributions from  the  life-efforts  of  every  other  inhabitant 
of  the  country,  for  without  the  existence  of  those  people 
no  such  fortunes  could  be  possible.  It  seems  just,  there- 
fore, that  at  the  expiration  of  a  Rockefeller's  existence, 
the  fortune  thus  stored  by  the  people  and  placed  under 
his  control,  should  go  back  to  its  real  producers,  to  be 
used  in  meeting  governmental  expenses,  rather  than 
descend  to  individuals  who  have  no  real  claims  upon  its 
possession,  and  whose  luxurious  use  of  wealth  breeds  all 


Il6  KING   MAMMON. 

the  vices  of  aristocracy  and  the  envy  and  ill-will  of  those 
not  receiving  such  special  favors  of  wealth  obtained  with- 
out effort. 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  children  of  moderately 
wealthy  families  usually  assist  their  parents  in  the  pro- 
duction of  the  family  fortune,  the  entire  obliteration  of 
inheritance  would  be  unjust,  for  the  right  of  a  producer 
to  life-possession  should  be  maintained  and  protected,  no 
matter  where  it  exists.  The  evil  of  our  present  laws  is 
that  they  protect  the  possessions  of  men  who  do  not  pro- 
duce anything  by  either  mental  or  physical  effort,  and 
extend  the  control  of  wealth  beyond  the  just  limits  of  a 
lifetime.  All  that  the  dying  man  can  justly  claim  is  pos- 
session till  his  death  and  the  right  to  testify  relative  to  the 
assistance  he  has  received  in  the  production  of  the  for- 
tune. All  that  any  survivor  can  justly  claim  as  a  special 
right  is  the  wealth  that  he  has  produced  by  his  own 
efforts.  It  rests  with  the  community,  therefore,  to  deal 
justly  with  the  distribution  and  to  claim  what  is  not 
equitably  to  be  placed  under  the  absolute  control  of  spe- 
cial successors. 

As  nearly  every  man  expects  to  leave  some  property  at 
his  death,  it  may  seem  absurd  that  any  writer  should 
gravely  ask  men  to  restrict  their  own  privileges  by 
abolishing  bequests,  but  all  transformations  in  society  are 
accomplished  by  moral  changes  in  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  the  people.  A  hundred  things  which  the  people  of 
preceding  eras  considered  right,  are  denounced  as  wrongs 
by  the  people  of  the  present.  Primitive  man  is  an 
unmitigated  tyrant  who  loses  his  tyranny  as  the  centuries 
roll  by.  He  has  retained  the  "tyranny  of  the  sepul- 
cher  "  to  the  present,  but  even  that  will  disappear,  like  the 
privilege  of  entail,  which  was  only  a  more  conspicuous 
form  of  the  same  tyranny. 

The  confusion   of  thought  in  the  consideration  of  sue- 


KING   MAMMON.  117 

cessions,  and  the  contradictory  emotions  that  it  evolves, 
are  due  to  the  fact  that  every  man  in  a  continuous  line  of 
descent  is  both  ancestor  and  heir.  Standing  in  the  midst 
of  time,  he  can  look  backward  at  the  generations  that 
have  preceded  him,  and  forward  at  those  to  come.  He 
inherits  from  those  before,  he  bequeaths  to  those  who 
follow.  If  he  would  comprehend  his  natural  rights,  his 
duties,  and  the  rights  of  other  men  to  the  end  that  justice 
shall  be  accomplished,  and  social  reforms  be  instituted, 
let  him  give  up  forever  the  idea  that  he  must  dictate  the 
disposition  of  his  life-possessions  when  he  departs  from 
earth.  Let  him  view  society  and  form  his  judgment  of 
its  rights  and  wrongs  when,  as  an  adult,  he  enters  the 
lists  in  competition,  and  not  when  he  has  completed  his 
race,  whether  successful  or  unsuccessful,  and  is  leaving 
those  lists  forever.  Let  him  look  backward  when  he  com- 
mences the  contest  of  life  to  see  whether  the  generation 
preceding  him  has  permitted  him  to  achieve  a  fair  opportu- 
nity for  success,  and  let  him  look  forward  to  his  success- 
ors and  inquire  whether  his  own  acts  will  leave  to  them 
the  justice  that  he  demands  for  himself.  Let  him  re- 
member that  as  a  dead  man  he  can  retain  no  further 
rights  in  this  world,  and  let  him  cease  his  unjust  attempts 
to  control  the  disposition  of  his  property  after  he  is  gone 
by  binding  his  survivors  with  a  will.  Let  him  consider 
what  he  would  like  the  world  to  be  when  he  comes  into 
it,  and  not  what  personal  favors  he  would  like  to  bestow 
as  he  goes  out.  We  cannot  be  tyrants  during  our  exist- 
ence and  leave  good  government  and  safe  and  equitable 
institutions  behind  us.  Every  man  must  choose  between 
the  retention  of  tyranny  to  gratify  his  own  wishes  on  his 
deathbed,  at  the  risk  of  leaving  dangerous  social  condi- 
tions surrounding  his  offspring,  and  a  voluntary  relin- 
quishment  of  the  privilege  of  making  bequests,  for  the 
sake  of  just  laws  and  a  stable  government.  It  maybe 


IlS  KING   MAMMON. 

better,  especially  under  the  present  social  conditions,  to 
leave  to  the  children  of  affluent  parents,  limited  wealth 
and  less  dangerous  surroundings,  for  in  certain  social 
crises  wealth  ceases  to  be  a  protection  and  poverty  be- 
comes a  shield.  The  guillotine  has  touched  even  the 
neck  of  royalty. 

Even  if  bequests  are  not  entirely  abolished,  they  should 
nevertheless  be  limited,  and  closely  limited,  too  ;  for  no 
trifling  with  wealth  by  any  slight  taxation  of  incomes  or 
inheritance  will  allay  the  fever  that  is  already  excited  in 
the  veins  of  the  people.  The  taxing  of  inheritances,  com- 
menced fifty  years  ago  and  developed  by  increasing  rates, 
would  have  kept  down  the  denunciation  of  injustice  ;  but 
it  is  too  late  for  merely  palliative  measures.  If  no  radical 
reforms  be  accomplished  by  legislation,  it  is  to  be  feared 
there  will  be  radical  reforms  without  legislation — at  least 
without  legislation  until  after  the  real  reforms  are  effected. 
Much  good  can  be  accomplished  by  the  limitation  of 
bequests,  even  if  the  power  of  designating  the  special 
successor  is  not  taken  away  from  the  decedent,  and  a 
severe  limitation,  enforced  by  an  approving  sentiment 
from  the  people,  will  gradually  remove  the  dangerous 
aspects  of  our  present  centralization.  The  exact  max- 
imum limit  of  inheritance  is  not  a  matter  of  prime  im- 
portance, and  can  easily  be  established  whenever  people 
admit  generally  that  limitation  is  just. 


KING   MAMMON.  119 


CHAPTER  IX. 

EARTH    FROM    A    DISTANCE. 

"  Every  age  and  generation  must  be  as  free  to  act  for  itself  in  all  cases  as 
the  ages  and  generations  which  preceded  it.  The  vanity  and  presumption 
of  governing  beyond  the  grave  is  the  most  ridiculous  and  insolent  of  all 
tyrannies.  Man  has  no  property  in  man;  neither  has  any  generation  a 
property  in  the  generations  "which  are  to  follow.  The  parliament  or  the 
people  of 1688.,  or  any  other  period,  had  no  more  right  to  dispose  of  the 
people  of  the  present  day,  or  to  bind  or  to  control  them  hi  any  shape  what- 
ever, than  the  parliament  or  the  people  of  the  present  day  have  to  dispose 
of,  bind,  or  control  those  who  are  to  live  an  hundred  or  a  thousand  years 
hence.  Every  generation  is  and  must  be  competent  to  all  the  purposes 
which  its  occasion  requires.  It  is  the  living  and  not  the  dead  that  are  to 
be  accommodated.  Wlien  man  ceases  to  be,  his  power  and  his  wants  cease 
with  him  ;  and  having  no  longer  any  participation  in  the  concerns  of  this 
world,  he  has  no  longer  any  authority  in  directing  who  shall  be  its  gov- 
ernors, or  how  its  government  shall  be  organized  or  how  administered. 
Those  who  have  quitted  the  world,  and  those  who  are  not  yet  arrived  in  it, 
are  as  remote  from  each  other  as  the  utmost  stretch  of  mortal  imagination 
can  conceive;  what  possible  obligation  then  can  exist  between  them,  what 
rule  or  principle  can  be  laid  down,  that  two  nonentities,  the  one  out  of  exist- 
ence, and  the  other  not  in,  and  who  never  can  meet  in  this  world,  that  the 
one  should  control  the  other  to  the  end  of  time  ?  " — THOMAS  PAINE. 

THE  complexity  of  social  phenomena  is  confusing  to 
those  who  attempt  to  trace  cause  and  effect  in  the  multi- 
plicity of  transactions  in  modern  life.  Public  thought  on 
the  relation  of  money  to  national  welfare  is  an  illustra- 
tion of  this  condition.  The  effect  of  new  machinery  in 
first  throwing  men  out  of  employment  and  afterwards 
increasing  the  wealth  of  society  and  the  demand  for  labor 
is  another  problem  often  confusing  in  the  same  way. 
Too  frequently  we  cannot  see  the  forest  for  the  trees,  and 
we  cannot  perceive  that  the  surface  of  quiet  water  is  a 
curve  because  we  see  so  little  of  it  at  one  time. 

When  we  stand  within  a  few  feet  of  some  huge  public 
building,  towering  hundreds  of  feet  above  us,  the  very 


120  KING    MAMMON. 

nearness  prevents  us  from  obtaining  a  clear  perception 
of  its  form  and  nature,  and  we  must  see  it  from  a  distance 
if  we  would  comprehend  its  general  shape. 

So  it  is  with  social  problems.  We  must  begin  with  a 
few  men  instead  of  a  multitude,  and  we  must  place  our- 
selves at  a  distance  from  earth,  so  that  we  shall  not  be 
like  the  man  who  is  unable  to  tell  what  a  crowd  is  doing 
because  he  is  hemmed  in  the  midst  of  it. 

Let  us  imagine,  therefore,  gentle  reader,  that  you  and 
I  are  transported  far  into  the  blue  ether,  and  released 
temporarily  from  all  the  selfish  personal  interests,  bias,  and 
prejudice  that  are  usually  a  part  of  existence  on  the  planet 
we  have  left  behind  us.  The  world  revolves  beneath  us 
now,  and  as  an  aid  in  our  experiments  we  are  armed  with 
a  superhuman  power  of  placing  men  on  earth  and  remov- 
ing them  as  we  see  fit  for  the  purposes  of  investigation. 

In  the  first  place,  therefore,  let  us  rid  the  earth  of  exist- 
ing humanity,  with  all  its  laws  and  customs,  for  they  are  a 
queer  patchwork  of  right  and  wrong  established  and  modi- 
fied little  by  little  as  the  race  progressed  in  its  develop- 
ment, and  what  has  thus  been  established  cannot  be  a 
criterion. 

Death,  then,  to  the  present  inhabitants  of  earth,  and 
destruction  to  all  their  institutions.  Off  they  go  from  the 
face  of  earth  as  though  a  huge  sponge  had  washed  the 
helpless  mites  into  the  ocean. 

Now  we  will  populate  the  earth  with  new  men  at  our 
own  will  and  in  our  own  way.  Those  whom  we  place 
upon  earth  will  not  be  our  relatives,  nor  our  friends, 
nor  even  our  countrymen.  They  will  be  men  full-grown 
and  prepared  to  immediately  participate  in  the  struggle 
for  existence.  For  the  present  we  will  omit  from  human 
nature  the  helpless  period  of  infancy,  and  for  our  con- 
venience, by  the  supernatural  power  with  which  we  have 
been  invested,  we  will  compress  the  years  of  man's 


KING   MAMMON.  121 

natural  life  into  the  duration  of  a  few  moments.  Under 
such  conditions  the  men  whom  we  place  upon  the  whirl- 
ing planet  will  be  creatures  that  can  appeal  only  to  our 
sense  of  justice  and  not  to  our  sympathy  and  self-interest, 
for,  remember,  we  are  creating  them  and  removing  them, 
without  being'  concerned  in  their  progress  in  any  way, 
except  to  give  each  and  all  of  them  fair  opportunities  in 
the  game  of  life. 

Earth  is,  in  our  imagination,  now  absolutely  free  from 
human  beings  and  from  traces  of  their  former  occupancy. 
We  place  upon  the  globe  a  single  man,  who  is,  neces- 
sarily, so  far  as  human  rights  are  concerned,  the  sole 
proprietor.  His  title  to  the  earth,  whatever  it  may  be  in 
its  real  nature,  is  undisputed.  He  builds  a  rude  house,  we 
will  suppose,  and  gathers  some  wild  fruit.  Now  we  will 
give  him  a  companion  by  placing  another  man  in  the 
same  vicinity.  Immediately  upon  doing  this,  we  have 
made  trouble  in  the  world,  for  both  men  cannot  be  ab- 
solute in  the  control  of  earth  at  the  same  time,  and  when- 
ever their  fancied  interests  conflict,  a  struggle  will  ensue. 
Neither  man  may  have  any  "natural  rights"  in  the  sense 
of  a  definite  decree  of  nature,  for  nature  apparently 
cares  but  little  for  morality.  Nature  is  absolutely  in- 
different to  human  rights  or  any  other  kind  of  rights, 
and  so  are  men  in  their  earliest  development  of  savage 
conditions.  If  our  two  men  contend  with  one  another 
in  a  savage  state,  the  stronger  will  simply  dash  out 
the  brains  of  the  weaker  and  become  again  supreme. 
But,  sooner  or  later,  there  comes  a  time  when  the  units  of 
human  life  begin  to  inquire  whether  they  cannot  agree 
upon  some  rules  that  will  effect  a  compromise  of  con- 
flicting interests  and  prevent  the  destruction  of  continual 
warfare.  Thus  government  is  instituted,  and  then  arise 
what  have  been  termed  natural  rights,  for  some  principle 
of  fairness  to  each  of  those  who  agree  to  the  compromise 


122  KING   MAMMON. 

must  be  embodied  in  it,  or  the  individuals  who  instituted 
the  government  will  go  back  to  the  primary  brute  condi- 
tion of  perpetual  strife  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  in 
actual  warfare. 

What,  therefore,  are  the  natural  rights,  so  far  as  they 
relate  to  property,  that  should  be  held  by  each  of  the  men 
we  have  created,  if  governmental  principles  are  to  be 
established  to  supersede,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  absolute 
reign  of  King  Might  ?  Has  the  first  man  who  appeared 
upon  earth  acquired  by  prior  occupancy  an  unlimited 
right  to  the  entire  planet  and  all  that  he  finds  upon  its  sur- 
face, so  that  he  can  justly  hold  that  monopoly  after  the 
second  man  appears,  or  does  he  justly  exercise  a  mon- 
opoly only  while  he  is  sole  occupant,  and  does  the  new- 
comer acquire,  by  the  mere  fact  of  his  presence,  an 
equal  right  with  the  first  man  in  all  the  natural  advan- 
tages of  earth  as  a  home  ?  In  some  respects  the  inquiry 
appears  trivial,  but  the  answer  which  society  makes  to  it 
lies,  at  the  foundation  of  nearly  all  the  property  rights  that 
now  exist.  It  will  lead  to  the  question  of  whether  men 
have  or  have  not  justice  on  their  side  when  they  appro- 
priate the  earth  absolutely  and  exclusively  for  themselves 
and  their  direct  descendants,  merely  because  they  happened 
to  be  born  first,  and  hence  to  occupy  earth  sooner  than 
other  men.  Recurring  to  the  condition  of  our  two  men 
who  are  attempting  to  establish  a  basis  for  fair  govern- 
ment, I  am  willing  that  my  reader  shall  judge  for  him- 
self their  rights  and  wrongs,  but  I  think  he  will  inevitably 
conclude  that  mere  priority  of  occupancy  can  never  es- 
tablish a  just  right  to  the  earth  or  any  part  of  it,  for  if  we 
concede  that  the  first  of  our  two  men  has  acquired  any 
such  right,  then  the  second  man  becomes  his  slave  ;  for 
he  must  serve  the  first  before  he  can  have  an  opportunity 
for  existence.  Right  based  merely  upon  priority  of  occu- 
pancy, then,  is  a  claim  that  slavery  is  just.  In  addition 


KING    MAMMON.  123 

to  this,  there  is  no  comparative  merit  whatever  nor  human 
effort  involved  in  being  born,  so  far  as  the  individual  thus 
brought  upon  earth  is  concerned,  and  on  that  account,  he 
can  claim  nothing  on  account  of  prior  occupancy  alone. 
Men  do  not  come  into  the  world  because  they  wish  to  go 
there,  nor  do  they  strive  for  that  result,  but  they  appear 
on  account  of  causes  which  are  entirely  independent  of 
their  own  volition  and  beyond  their  control. 

No  credit  and  no  blame,  therefore,  attaches  to  any  man 
because  he  came  into  the  world  sooner  or  later  than  his 
fellow,  even  if  the  difference  in  time  amounts  to  a  thou- 
sand years,  and  hence  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a 
just  appropriation  of  any  part  of  earth  by  priority  of 
occupation  by  birth,  for  the  element  of  superiority  of 
knowledge  or  effort  which  backs  such  claims  in  the  com- 
petition of  life  is  entirely  absent.  There  can  be  neither 
competition  nor  right  of  appropriation  attaching  to  men 
in  being  born,  because  no  power,  no  volition,  no  con- 
trol over  the  beginning  of  existence  is  possessed  by  them. 

Men  have  to  come  into  the  world  whether  they  wish  to 
do  so  or  not,  so  they  can  claim  no  credit  for  priority  of 
birth  and  establish  no  rights  from  that  fact.  So,  in  the 
little  problem  before  us,  it  seems  fair  that  when  the  second 
man  appears  in  the  world,  no  matter  whether  he  arrives 
ten  seconds  or  ten  years  after  the  first,  he  immediately 
acquires  by  his  mere  presence  and  existence  an  equal 
right  with  the  first  in  all  that  part  of  the  earth  to  which 
the  labor  of  the  primeval  inhabitant  has  not  been  applied. 
When  the  first  man  has  worked  to  gather  his  berries  or  to 
build  his  hut,  he  thus  acquires  a  better  right  to  them  than 
that  of  his  companion,  but  their  rights  are  and  must  be 
absolutely  equal  in  all  of  earth  that  is  unchanged  by  labor  ; 
for  any  other  supposition  would  subvert  justice  by  making 
one  the  slave  of  the  other.  Without  labor  neither  can 
have  any  better  right  than  the  other  to  earthly  possessions, 


124  KING   MAMMON. 

and  mere  occupancy  can  establish  no  just  claim  for  either  ; 
but  the  instant  that  one  of  these  human  beings  works 
upon  any  definite  portion  of  his  surroundings  to  improve 
it  for  his  use,  that  instant  he  acquires  a  superior  and 
exclusive  right  to  its  possession,  which  any  disinterested 
observer  capable  of  comprehending  self-evident  truth, 
would  assist  him  to  maintain  and  defend. 

Thus  these  two  inhabitants  of  earth  exist,  and  the 
natural  rights  of  each  can  be  perceived  so  easily  by  a  can- 
did and  unprejudiced  observer,  that  they  are  almost  self- 
evident.  When,  however,  do  those  rights  terminate? 
There  can  be  but  one  reply,  for  such  rights  relate  to  man's 
life  on  earth  alone.  Before  man's  appearance  on  earth  he 
possessed  no  rights  of  any  kind  in  its  substance,  and  he 
can  retain  none  when  he  departs. 

Human  rights  of  all  kinds  perish  with  their  possessor. 
Granting  that  each  of  our  two  men  has  constructed  a 
house,  is  it  conceivable  that  he  could  justly  place  one 
man  of  a  succeeding  generation  in  absolute  control  of  it, 
or  debar  another  man  from  occupying  it  by  any  con- 
tinuance of  his  own  right  beyond  his  own  lifetime?  We 
will  create  more  men  and  investigate,  but  first  the  earth 
must  be  cleared  again  and  a  new  generation  of  ten  men 
established.  Wrhen  these  arrive  upon  the  planet  they  find 
earth,  air,  and  water  ready  to  afford  them  sustenance,  and 
perhaps  they  discover  a  few  huts  and  implements  left  by 
their  two  predecessors.  What  are  the  natural  rights  of 
the  ten  men?  Are  they  different  because  there  are  ten 
men  instead  of  two,  or  because  the  earth  was  occupied 
before  they  came  ?  Who  now  ought  to  control  the  land, 
the  air,  the  water,  and  the  former  possessions  of  earlier 
inhabitants  ?  It  is  self-evident  that  the  conditions  are  not 
changed  except  by  an  increased  population.  The  ten  men 
have  equal  rights  to  use  all  that  nature  provides  for  them 
and  all  that  is  left  behind  by  the  former  generation,  includ- 


KING   MAMMON.  125 

ing  the  tools  and  huts  of  their  two  ancestors,  because  the 
rights  of  the  primeval  inhabitants  expired  at  their  death,  and 
the  rights  of  the  successors  begin  equally.  The  private,  or 
special,  or  exclusive  right  of  each  man,  as  distinguished 
from  his  equal  or  general  right,  can  begin  only  when  he  has 
produced  something  by  transforming  its  original  condition 
by  the  application  of  his  own  labor.  Exchanges  may  be 
made  later  on,  but  the  primary  right  is  derived  from  the 
application  of  labor. 

Suppose  that  our  ten  men  by  mutual  consent  agree 
that  each  shall  take  and  use  a  certain  definite  part  of  the 
earth's  surface,  and  shall  thereafter  seek  his  subsistence 
from  that  portion  alone.  The  arrangement  is  equitable, 
and  if  the  ten  men  are  fair  samples  of  existing  humanity, 
it  would  be  the  only  feasible  plan  under  which  they  could 
peaceably  exist.  Now  that  the  distribution  of  their  ter- 
ritory is  accomplished,  however,  one  of  the  men  dies. 

What  are  the  natural  rights  of  those  involved  in  the 
occurrence  ?  Has  the  dying  man  a  right  to  select  his  suc- 
cessor in  the  one-tenth  interest  that  has  been  set  over  to 
him  by  the  division,  or,  if  he  has  built  a  house,  has  he  any 
moral  or  natural  right  to  designate  the  man  who  shall 
occupy  and  use  it  after  his  death?  We  will  permit  him 
to  use  that  power  and  note  the  result.  If  one  of  our  ten 
men  should  be  very  amiable  and  popular,  and  live  to  old 
age,  as  good-natured  men  frequently  do,  the  existence  of 
such  a  privilege  would  by  successive  deaths  and  succes- 
sive bequests  to  this  individual  lead  to  the  queer  result, 
after  eight  men  had  perished,  of  two  men  inhabiting  the 
earth  under  what  we  assumed  to  be  equal  rights,  and 
with  equal  efforts  and  ability,  yet  one  of  them  owning  nine- 
tenths  of  the  world  and  the  other  only  one-tenth.  This 
result  is  exactly  the  kind  of  demonstration  that  modern 
society  is  making  of  the  supposed  equal  rights  that  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  our  institutions. 


126  KING   MAMMON. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  man  of  those  ten  inhabitants, 
or  any  of  the  real  inhabitants  of  earth,  possesses  a  natural 
right  to  bequeath,  and  he  cannot  be  invested  with  any 
such  privilege  without  destroying  the  equal  rights  of  the 
survivors.  No  man,  when  he  dies,  can  even  rightfully 
decree  the  disposition  of  the  house  that  he  has  built ;  for 
if,  in  expectancy  of  death,  he  has  the  natural  right  to  be- 
queath it  to  any  person,  he  has  the  same  right  to  withhold 
it  from  all  persons. 

Therefore,  if  nine  of  our  ten  men  should  become 
misanthropes  and  declare  at  death  that  no  survivor  or 
successor  should  possess  their  houses,  the  sole  inhabitant 
of  earth  then  remaining  would  eventually  find  himself 
surrounded  by  ten  houses,  with  the  privilege  of  occupying 
only  one,  and,  if  that  should  accidentally  be  destroyed,  he 
would  be  the  sole  proprietor  of  earth,  and  yet  homeless 
in  the  midst  of  unoccupied  homes. 

In  the  problem  of  our  ten  men,  if  the  dying  man  has 
no  right  to  bequeath  his  possessions,  and  cannot  do  so 
without  inflicting  injustice,  what  are  the  rights  of  the 
survivors  when  he  dies  ?  After  the  first  man's  death  there 
remain  nine  survivors,  and  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  each  man  owns — so  far  as  man  can  own — one- 
ninth  of  the  earth.  They  are  equal  heirs  to  all  the  pos- 
sessions of  those  who  leave  the  world  before  them.  In 
establishing  this  elementary  consideration  of  inheritance, 
I  purposely  leave  out  of  view  all  relationship,  love,  and 
friendship,  because  the  existence  of  government  cannot  be 
based  upon  those  sentiments.  Justice  between  man 
and  man  independent  of  blood  affinity  is  the  only  safe 
rule  in  modern  civilization,  and  the  sole  question  is  : 
"What  is  best  for  men  to  do  in  order  to  maintain  equal 
rights  ? "  In  our  own  republic,  if  this  inquiry  is  not  made 
and  no  solution  afforded,  men  will  eventually  destroy  one 
another  in  a  physical  instead  of  a  mental  effort  to  de- 


KING   MAMMON.  I2/ 

termine  their  natural  rights,  quite  as  ferociously  and  far 
more  expeditiously  than  they  have  ever  done  in  the  past. 
Parental  affection,  while  it  is  one  of  the  strongest  senti- 
ments of  human  nature,  is  yet  common  to  all  animals  of 
the  higher  types,  and  it  is  no  more  fit  to  be  made  the 
basis  of  property-rights  than  the  sexual  passion  or  the 
greed  of  the  miser.  The  distribution  of  the  property  of 
decedents  is  not  a  matter  of  charity  and  affection,  but  a 
question  involving  justice.  For  centuries  men  have  shed 
tears  around  the  deathbed,  and  those  tears  have  blinded 
them  to  the  bitter  wrongs  perpetrated  in  the  name  of 
institutions  which  they  deemed  beneficent,  if  not  divine. 
Whenever  justice  is  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  the  affections, 
the  world  suffers.  Inheritance  is  not  a  mere  matter  of 
respect  to  the  dead  nor  a  deferential  execution  of  the  dead 
man's  wishes.  If  the  dying  man  is  blind  to  justice  by  his 
love  for  his  children,  the  children  are  also  frequently  as  blind 
by  affection  for  the  parent.  The  execution  of  his  wishes 
to  the  letter  is  often  considered  a  duty,  even  where  those 
requests  are  unreasonable.  Two  questions  bearing  upon 
these  relations  need  consideration.  Has  a  dying  man 
any  right  to  have  his  desires  executed,  and  have  the  sur- 
vivors any  right  to  refuse  or  to  limit  those  requests  ? 
I  say,  emphatically,  that  the  earth  must  ever  be  controlled 
by  the  desires  of  those  who  survive  in  it,  and  not  by  the 
wishes  of  those  who  are  dead. 

In  the  case  of  earth's  ten  inhabitants,  still  before  us, 
the  dying  man  possessed  no  perpetual  control  over  his 
tenth  interest  nor  in  the  productions  of  his  labor,  but  only 
possessed  a  right  to  use  them  during  his  lifetime.  Having 
no  right  to  them  beyond  his  life,  he  could  not  delegate 
to  any  other  man  powers  and  rights  that  he  did  not 
possess  at  the  instant  of  his  death.  When  a  human  being 
dies,  no  other  person  can  justly  acquire  any  claim  to  the 
estate,  except  by  the  conceded  right  to  existence  in  help- 


128  KING   MAMMON. 

less  infancy,  by  the  right  which  enables  him  to  participate 
in  the  estate  through  the  previous  application  of  his  own 
labor,  or  by  the  equal  right  that  all  survivors  under  the 
same  governmental  institutions  possess.  All  disposition 
of  the  property  held  by  decedents  is  the  sole  province  of 
the  survivors  ;  not  of  a  few  survivors,  but  of  all  who  are  - 
associated  under  the  same  government.  Thus,  in  the 
progress  of  our  ten  earthly  inhabitants,  the  dying  man 
abandons  all  claims,  and  the  just  settlement  of  his  estate 
is  to  be  determined  by  the  nine  survivors — not  by  himself.  . 

If  the  labor  of  any  other  man  forms  a  part  of  the  wealth 
left  behind,  he  has  a  special  claim  upon  the  estate  to  that 
extent,  but  under  no  other  circumstances  can  he  have 
more  than  an  equal  right  with  his  associates  in  the  prop- 
erty of  any  decedent. 

Whenever  any  transaction  becomes  of  such  a  nature 
that  it  serves  to  treat  any  man's  right  to  property  as  a 
perpetuity  and  to  link  it  absolutely  from  one  generation 
to  the  next  in  defiance  of  the  natural  rights  affected  in 
that  way,  it  is  contrary  to  the  public  good  and  dangerous 
to  the  stability  of  society. 

We  will  restore  our  ten  men  to  earth  again  and  after- 
wards admit  another.  What  are  the  natural  rights  of  the 
new-comer  ?  Because  the  ten  have  appeared  first,  and 
because  they  have  made  a  division  of  earthly  advantages 
among  themselves,  is  this  man  arriving  later  to  be  ex- 
cluded from  every  opportunity  for  existence  ?  Or,  suppose 
we  admit  ten  men  after  the  first  ten  have  occupied  and 
apportioned  the  earth.  Have  the  first  ten  all  the  natural 
rights  to  property,  and  the  others  none? 

Only  a  distorted  and  diseased  mind,  dwarfed  by  pre- 
judice, can  doubt  that  the  rights  of  all  are  equal,  except 
where  labor  has  been  applied.  When  any  number  of 
men  arrive  by  birth  they  have  equal  rights  with  the  ten 
original  inhabitants  in  all  that  nature  provides  for  their 


KING   MAMMON.  I2Q 

comfort.  Simple  and  self-evident  as  this  principle  appears 
when  presented  in  this  elementary  form,  it  is  entirely  dis- 
regarded in  the  laws  of  every  civilized  country  in  the 
world  at  the  present  time.  New  men  arrive  on  earth 
every  day,  little  men,  it  is  true, — helpless  infants  in  their 
mothers'  arms, — and  they  are  able  to  secure  not  even  the 
shadow  of  equal  rights,  nor  any  interest  whatever  in  the 
natural  advantages  and  opportunities  that  earth  affords. 
Slavery  is  their  lot,  unless  some  ancestor  has  left  them 
estates. 

When  these  little  people  approach  manhood  and  begin 
the  struggle  for  existence,  they  find  the  land  appropriated 
and  held  under  private  ownership.  They  find  all  the 
buildings  and  tools  provided  and  left  behind  by  the  pre- 
vious inhabitants  controlled  and  monopolized,  so  that  they 
have  literally  no  interest  in  earth,  nothing  to  eat,  and  no 
place  in  which  to  rest,  unless  they  first  bargain  with  the 
men  who  have  deprived  them  of  their  natural  birthright. 

Before  these  new  inhabitants  can  till  the  soil,  they  must 
rent  it  of  another  man.  In  order  to  obtain  tools  they 
must  hire  them,  and  both  land  and  tools  must  usually  be 
secured  from  people  who  inherited  them,  and  whose  nat- 
ural right  to  them  is,  therefore,  no  better  than  that  of  the 
disinherited  men  who  must  pay  for  their  use.  Handi- 
capped in  the  race  of  life  in  this  way,  harassed  and 
hindered  by  injustice,  robbed  by  the  necessity  of  paying 
land  rents  and  interest  for  hired  money  to  the  favored 
class  who  have  never  earned  it,  is  it  wonderful  that  in 
every  old  and  densely-populated  country  of  the  world,  the 
man  who  is  born  in  poverty  remains  poor  all  his  life  ? 

Is  he  likely  to  secure  wealth  or  even  comfort  when  he 
is  compelled  by  the  tyranny  of  inheritance  to  support  by 
his  own  labor  the  wealthy  idlers  who  are  parasites  upon 
his  existence? 

Let  us  now  give  to  our  ten  inhabitants  an  imaginary 
9 


130  KING   MAMMON. 

intelligence  greater  than  they  have  hitherto  possessed. 
Having  allotted  the  earth  among  themselves  in  equal 
shares,  and  lived  a  good  life,  they  feel  that  death  is 
approaching.  Each  man  knows  that  a  new  generation 
will  people  the  earth,  and  we  will  suppose  that,  in 
some  way,  it  matters  not  how,  he  knows  the  people  who 
are  to  succeed  him,  and  has  a  favorite  among  them.  Ac- 
cordingly, as  death  approaches,  each  of  the  ten  gathers 
into  his  rude  dwelling  the  wealth  he  has  accumulated, 
and  posts  a  notice  on  the  door,  declaring  that  all  his  wild 
land,  all  his  cultivated  land,  and  all  his  various  labor  pro- 
ducts shall  be  owned  and  controlled  by  one  specified 
individual  of  the  coming  generation.  Death  then  claims 
the  ten  ancestors,  and  the  successors,  numbering  one  hun- 
dred men,  come  upon  the  scene,  prepared  to  enjoy  their 
equal  rights.  Will  they  not  be  astonished  to  discover  the 
ten  notices  posted  by  their  predecessors,  whereby  ten  of 
their  number  inherit  the  entire  earth,  according  to  the  ex- 
isting theory  of  bequests,  and  the  ninety  other  men  are 
compelled  to  dance  around  the  edges  of  the  estates  thus 
absolutely  bequeathed,  in  the  vain  effort  to  find  where 
equal  rights  begin  and  where  they  terminate  ? 

Would  you,  my  reader,  under  such  circumstances,  rec- 
ognize the  decree  of  the  ancestors  as  being  just,  or  would 
you  claim  that,  as  one  man  among  a  hundred,  you  must 
have  an  equal  opportunity  to  live  and  prosper  with  every 
other  man  ? 

"But,"  the  objector  will  reply,  perhaps  honestly,  per- 
haps dishonestly,  for  all  kinds  of  motives,  selfish  and 
unselfish,  will  influence  men  when  the  privilege  of  be- 
queathing property  is  attacked,  "all  this  kind  of  illustra- 
tion and  reasoning  is  sheer  nonsense,  for  men  do  not 
come  into  the  world  in  this  way  by  twos,  and  tens,  and 
hundreds. " 

Very  true ;  generations  do  not  live  and  die  as  absolutely 


KING   MAMMON.  131 

separate  and  distinct  entities.  Men  are  born  and  men  die 
every  day,  and  the  generations  are  to  a  certain  extent 
intermingled,  but  these  facts  make  no  real  difference  in 
the  nature  of  the  wrong,  and  merely  tend  to  obscure  it, 
so  that  men  do  not  at  first  perceive  its  real  extent  and 
significance.  The  essential  fact  remains,  notwithstanding 
the  intermingling  of  generations,  that  at  a  period  in  the 
progress  of  society  one  hundred  years  later  than  any 
date  that  may  be  selected  for  observation  an  entirely  new 
population  inhabits  the  earth,  or  any  country  that  may  be 
chosen  as  an  example.  Some  of  these  new  people  have, 
in  the  meantime,  inherited  the  most  desirable  portions  of 
whatever  division  of  earth  has  been  selected  for  investiga- 
tion, and  these  heirs  retain  possession  and  absolute  con- 
trol of  their  wealth  and  of  the  natural  opportunities  to 
acquire  wealth  under  the  absurdly  unjust  principle  of 
bequests,  which  enable  them  by  the  tyrannical  decrees 
of  their  forefathers  to  domineer  in  idle  luxury  over  those 
unfortunates  who  have  inherited  nothing  either  in  wealth 
or  opportunities  from  preceding  generations.  By  the 
gradual  and  indefinite  succession  of  generations  in  this 
way  and  the  unjust  method  of  transmitting  property  rights 
from  ancestor  to  heirs,  the  aristocracy  and  the  serfdom 
that  have  always  existed  in  every  country  after  the  lapse 
of  a  few  centuries  of  stable  government,  and  which  are 
already  beginning  to  develop  in  the  United  States  from 
the  same  causes,  are  inevitably  evolved. 

The  only  differences  between  our  supposed  condition 
of  men  on  earth  and  their  real  condition  are  : 

First — That  the  actual  number  of  men  is  much  greater 
than  the  supposed  number,  and  they  are  divided  into 
nations  instead  of  uniting  in  the  occupancy  of  the  entire 
earth.  These  facts  do  not  affect  any  deductions  we  make 
from  the  inspection  of  our  ten  inhabitants,  for  just  prin- 
ciples established  among  ten  people  will  remain  just 


132  KING   MAMMON. 

principles  when  applied  to  ten  millions,  for  mere  numbers 
cannot  change  right  to  wrong.  The  division  of  earth  into 
countries  need  not  produce  any  confusion  of  ideas,  for,  so 
far  as  government  is  concerned,  each  country  is  a  little 
earth  for  which  separate  and  distinct  laws  can  be  made. 

Second — That  consanguinity  exists  in  the  real  world 
between  men  of  the  same  generation  and  between  men 
of  different  generations.  In  the  world  that  we  populated 
and  depopulated  by  an  imaginary  supernatural  power, 
our  human  beings  were  not  related,  but  succeeded  one 
another  spontaneously,  or  as  we  directed  their  existence. 
In  the  real  world  the  development  of  new  existence  is 
quite  differently  arranged  ;  but  is  there  any  real  variation 
so  far  as  the  principles  of  justice  are  concerned?  Those 
principles  of  right  and  wrong  between  man  and  man  on 
which  the  stability  of  society  must  eventually  depend  are 
not  affected  by  mere  relationship.  Right  is  right  and 
wrong  is  wrong  between  men,  whether  they  be  father  and 
son,  or  brothers,  or  merely  strangers. 

Property  rights  cannot  be  justly  based  upon  consan- 
guinity, and  blood  connection  alone  confers  no  merit 
upon  a  claimant ;  for,  so  far  as  his  own  efforts  are  con- 
cerned, consanguinity  is  purely  an  accident  The  father 
may  be  prudent,  far-seeing,  energetic,  and  abstemious,  but 
these  wealth-producing  attributes  do  not  entitle  the  son  to 
inherit  his  wealth,  for  each  man  ought  to  be  the  architect 
of  his  own  fortune.  No  matter  how  wealthy  the  father 
may  be,  the  only  rights  the  son  can  justly  claim,  except  on 
account  of  helplessness,  are  the  equal  right  as  one  of  the 
community  and  the  special  right  that  arises  from  the  appli- 
cation of  his  own  labor.  To  give  any  man  wealth  merely 
because  his  father  happened  to  be  wealthy  is  neither  more 
wise  nor  more  just  than  to  hang  another  son  because  his 
paternal  ancestor  was  a  murderer,  or  to  imprison  him 
because  the  latter  was  a  thief. 


KING  MAMMON.  133 

Property  rights  cannot  be  justly  conveyed  by  the  trans- 
mission of  blood.  The  real  reason  why  sons  often  have 
justly  a  special  interest  and  right  in  their  fathers'  estates 
is  not  from  the  mere  fact  that  they  are  sons  and  of  the 
same  blood,  but  because  in  family  association  they  assisted 
in  the  production  of  the  wealth  which  remains  in  their 
fathers'  possession.  Their  right,  therefore,  is  not  different 
in  its  real  nature  from  that  possessed  by  any  other  person 
who  has  assisted  in  the  production  of  the  same  wealth,  no 
matter  whether  relationship  exists  or  not.  Children  usually 
imagine  that  consanguinity  confers  upon  them  some  special 
right  to  the  estates  of  their  parents,  but  the  real  rights 
which  they  possess  come  to  them  only  through  their  own 
efforts  and  production.  Even  the  most  thoughtless  ob- 
server cannot  fail  to  note  that  the  position  of  the  child 
who  abandons  home  at  the  age  of  ten  years  is,  so  far  as 
rights  to  the  property  of  the  parents  are  concerned,  quite 
different  from  that  of  the  son  or  the  daughter  who  faithfully 
assists  them  in  the  development  of  home  wealth ;  and  a 
little  careful  reflection  will  develop  the  truth  that  it  is 
invariably  personal  effort  and  not  consanguinity  that 
establishes  any  just  special  claim  to  the  property  held  by 
our  ancestors. 

Third — That  the  results  of  personal  effort  by  members 
of  one  generation  are  frequently  mingled  with  the  results  of 
like  effort  by  men  of  a  preceding  or  succeeding  generation, 
and  that  society  imposes  on  the  individuals  of  one  genera- 
tion the  care  and  sustenance  of  certain  individuals  of  the 
next,  and  decrees,  not  quite  successfully,  that  members 
of  the  expiring  generation  during  their  waning  hours  shall 
be  protected  by  their  direct  descendants.  Thus  we  have 
the  institution  of  the  family  and  its  special  co-operation 
or  partnership  between  ancestors  and  descendants.  The 
helplessness  of  infancy  and  the  helplessness  of  old  age 
constitute  the  onlv  real  difference  between  the  world  of 


134  KING  MAMMON. 

our  ten  men  and  the  world  as  it  exists,  so  far  as  property 
rights  are  concerned.  Men  do  not  come  upon  the  earth 
twenty-one  years  of  age,  strong  and  active,  and  they  do 
not  usually  disappear  in  the  same  physical  condition. 
There  is  the  appealing  weakness  of  infancy,  the  second 
childhood  of  senility,  and  the  mutual  loving  protection 
that  usually  exists  within  the  family  circle  between  parents 
and  children,  which  in  its  perfect  development  is  one  of 
the  noblest  sentiments  of  human  nature.  The  institution 
of  the  family  is  really  a  sort  of  partnership  in  property 
existing  between  men  of  successive  generations,  in  which 
blood  connection  is  usually  involved,  but  in  which  it  is 
not  an  essential  feature,  for  in  many  cases,  by  formal  and 
informal  adoption,  the  partnership  is  effected  independently 
of  consanguinity.  Were  it  not  for  this  partnership  existing 
between  men  of  different  generations,  by  which  ancestors 
assist  descendants  during  infancy,  and  descendants  pro- 
tect ancestors  in  old  age,  and  by  which  both  frequently 
cooperate  in  producing  wealth,  there  could  be  no  serious 
denial  of  the  equity  expressed  by  an  equal  distribution 
of  the  wealth  of  all  decedents  among  all  national  survivors, 
supposing  that  to  be  practicable  ;  for,  under  such  circum- 
stances, no  man  would  have  a  better  right  than  another 
to  any  estate  left  behind  by  the  man  who  disappeared  from 
earth.  But,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  property  rights  of 
one  generation  are  mingled  with  those  of  the  next,  there 
never  can  be  more  than  an  approach  to  exact  justice  in  the 
distribution  of  inheritance,  for  the  state  will,  necessarily, 
have  to  settle  conflicting  claims.  The  rights  of  the  people 
in  general  to  the  wealth  acquired  and  possessed  solely  by 
the  dead  man  during  his  lifetime,  will  have  to  be  distin- 
guished and  separated  from  those  claims  to  wealth  produced 
by  the  living  in  which  special  rights  exist ;  and  the  division 
of  the  property  should  be  based  upon  these  principles. 
The  existence  of  these  family  relations  and  the  com- 


KING   MAMMON.  135 

munity  of  family  effort  complicate  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  inheritance,  but  they  in  no  way  affect  the  truth 
of  the  propositions  that  the  ancestor  has  absolutely  no 
right  to  bequeath  his  wealth,  and  the  descendant  no  right 
to  specially  claim  what  he  has  not  acquired  or  produced 
by  his  own  effort.  The  same  conditions  are  involved  in 
actual  life  that  present  themselves  in  the  simple  exist- 
ence of  our  supposed  world,  except  that  the  people  must 
distinguish  and  separate  their  general  or  equal  rights  in 
the  wealth  of  ancestors  from  the  special  partnership  rights 
involved  in  the  institution  of  the  family. 

With  these  principles  in  view,  approximate  if  not  exact 
justice  can  be  accomplished ;  and  as  human  decrees  are 
never  exactly  just,  a  slight  variation  one  way  or  the  other 
will  not  distress  society.  Whenever  the  minds  of  people 
settle  firmly  on  the  idea  that  men  shall  not  reap  unless 
they  sow ;  that  a  knight  must  win  his  spurs  before  he 
wears  them  ;  that  no  man  shall  possess  and  control  wealth 
unless  he  has  acquired  it  by  his  own  mental  or  physical 
labor, — then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the  dangerous  features 
of  inheritance  be  removed,  and  society  rest  upon  safer 
principles  of  property  rights  than  those  which  now  en- 
courage the  development  of  the  destructive  bomb  and 
torch,  insurrection,  rebellion,  and  the  annihilation  of  exist- 
ing government.  If  our  imaginary  view  of  an  earth  pop- 
ulated under  different  conditions  from  those  surrounding 
us  shall  contribute  in  even  a  remote  degree  to  the  establish- 
ment of  truth  and  justice,  our  journey  to  the  clouds,  from 
which  we  must  now  return,  will  not  have  been  time 
wasted. 


136  KING   MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  X. 

SIX  FEET  OF  EARTH  FOR  A  GRAVE. 

"  To  drop  a  man  in  the  middle  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  tell  him  he 
is  at  liberty  to  walk  ashore,  -would  not  be  more  bitter  irony  than  to  place  a 
man  "where  all  the  land  is  appropriated  as  the  property  of  other  people  and- 
to  tell  him  that  he  is  a  free  man,  at  liberty  to  work  for  himself  and  to  en- 
ioy  his  own  earnings" — HENRY  GEORGE. 

SUPPOSE,  my  reader,  that  in  a  little  earth  inhabited  by 
a  thousand  people,  the  entire  land  surface,  amounting  to 
one  hundred  square  miles,  has  been  divided  into  four  hun- 
dred farms  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  each,  and  is 
owned  absolutely  by  four  hundred  persons,  while  the  six 
hundred  people  comprising  the  remainder  of  the  popula- 
tion are  landless.  Suppose  that  you  are  born  into  such  a 
world,  without  any  traditional  golden  spoon  to  bear  you 
company  in  that  interesting  portion  of  your  existence, 
and  that  when  you  arrive  at  years  of  discrimination,  if 
not  of  discretion,  you  find  the  land  surface  of  the  little 
earth  entirely  monopolized  by  those  who  happened  to  get 
there  first  by  the  same  method  that  you  entered  the  world. 
Do  you  think  that  your  condition  and  future  prospects 
under  the  shadow  of  that  social  land-trust  or  combination 
would  be  particularly  enviable,  or  that  you  could  be  very 
proud  of  your  rights  as  a  citizen  or  inhabitant  of  that 
imaginary  earth  ? 

Suppose  that  the  landowners  should  conclude  that  all 
the  other  people  ought  to  be  regarded  as  trespassers,  and 
having  erected  barbed  wire  fences  around  their  property 
they  should  politely  request  you  and  your  landless  asso- 
ciates to  step  outside  the  boundaries  of  their  estates,  do 


KING   MAMMON.  137 

you  really  have  any  very  clear  idea  where  you  would  take 
up  your  future  residence  under  such  circumstances  ? 

Your  supposed  condition  brings  to  mind  that  of  some 
tramps  in  a  western  city  during  the  winter  of  1894. 

Heavy  storms  had  driven  the  impecunious  classes  into 
the  city,  and  some  of  them  being  vicious  they  were  con- 
sidered a  dangerous  nuisance,  so  the  mayor  recommended 
in  the  following  language  that  the  "  saloons  be  closed  at 
midnight,  when  their  patrons  will  thus  be  turned  into  the 
streets,  and  if  they  have  homes  they  will  go  home  ;  if  they 
have  no  homes,  the  police  will  arrest  them  and  drive 
them  out  of  the  city." 

It  does  not  seem  quite  right  to  drive  a  man  from  place 
to  place  with  policemen's  clubs,  simply  because  he  has  no 
home  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  my  well-fed  and  comfortable 
reader,  placed  under  these  real  circumstances,  or  under 
the  supposed  circumstances  that  have  been  described, 
would  complain  of  injustice,  and  would,  doubtless,  incite 
some  kind  of  a  rebellion  among  the  landless  six  hundred 
and  against  the  four  hundred  monopolists.  Rebellion  in 
real  life  on  the  real  earth  always  arises  sooner  or  later  out 
of  such  a  condition  of  land  monopoly,  which,  as  will  be 
proved  hereafter,  is  not  any  peculiar  monopolization,  but 
only  one  form  of  the  universal  wealth  monopoly  that  is 
the  bane  of  civilization.  It  may  be  predicted,  with  little 
doubt  in  the  mind  of  a  man  conversant  with  social  insti- 
tutions, that,  unless  the  evil  tendency  in  that  direction  is 
corrected  in  the  United  States,  it  will  eventually  produce 
a  rebellion  as  a  perfectly  natural  fruition.  On  this  account, 
it  may  be  worth  while  for  every  citizen  to  pause  for  a  few 
moments  in  his  mad  scramble  for  wealth  and  devote  a 
little  thought  to  ascertaining  whether  any  man  has  a  nat- 
ural right  of  access  to  any  greater  quantity  of  land  than 
society  is  supposed  to  embody  in  the  universal  heritage 
of  "six  feet  of  earth  for  a  grave,"  even  this  landed  estate 


138  KING  MAMMON. 

being  materially  lessened  in  some  instances  by  burying 
men  in  trenches. 

The  nature  of  land  tenures,  land  being  the  most  promi- 
nent and  persistent  form  that  wealth  can  assume,  is  at  the 
bottom  of  nearly  all  the  burning  social  problems  that  are 
being  discussed,  and  the  question  may  as  well  come  di- 
rectly home  to  every  man  in  this  form  : 

"Does  any  man  naturally  and  justly  own  land  to  which 
he  has  acquired  a  legal  title  in  any  way,  his  ownership 
being  a  perpetuity  either  in  his  hands  or  in  the  hands 
of  successors  to  whom  he  transfers  his  rights,  or  is  his 
land  tenure  merely  a  lease  from  the  community,  who  are 
the  real  owners  at  any  given  instant,  or  from  all  humanity 
of  the  past,  present,  and  future,  who  are  the  owners  in  a 
more  general  sense  ?  " 

That  is  the  question  for  every  man  to  answer  before  he 
can  have  any  basis  established  from  which  to  reach  final 
conclusions  in  property  rights.  Every  man  must  decide 
in  his  own  mind  this  question  before  he  can  either  accept 
the  theory  that  our  deeds  justly  as  well  as  legally  convey 
land  to  any  man  "his  heirs  and  assigns  forever."  Every 
man  will,  doubtless,  understand  that  land  is  now  held 
under  private  ownership  in  every  civilized  country  ;  but 
the  question  is  not  what  is  custom  or  law,  but  whether 
the  practice  of  treating  land  as  private  property  is  just  or 
unjust,  and  whether  human  misery  from  tyranny  is  pro- 
duced by  the  system.  We  are  liable  to  suppose  because 
we  find  land  owned  and  controlled  in  this  way  when  we 
arrive  at  an  age  which  enables  us  to  observe  and  compre- 
hend such  things,  that  it  was  always  thus,  and  that  the 
system  must  be  right  because  we  never  knew  of  any  other. 
When  we  remember,  however,  that  millions  of  men  have 
come  into  the  world  and  gone  out  of  it  profoundly  con- 
vinced during  their  entire  existence  that  such  customs  as 
cannibalism,  infanticide,  human  sacrifices,  wife-slavery, 


KING   MAMMON,  139 

and  all  other  kinds  of  slavery,  were  entirely  right  and 
perfectly  consistent  with  the  religion  and  morality  of  the 
age  in  which  they  were  practiced,  it  may  not  be  to  our  dis- 
credit as  presumably  intelligent  occupants  of  the  world 
in  its  more  advanced  stages,  if  we  frankly  and  deliberately 
investigate  some  of  the  institutions  that  our  forefathers 
have  handed  down  to  us,  with  the  idea  of  ascertaining,  if 
possible,  whether  they  are  really  any  more  consistent  with 
justice  and  morality,  as  we  understand  those  terms,  than 
some  customs  that  we  have  already  discarded,  or  whether 
they  are  now  really  adapted  to  the  general  welfare  of  so- 
ciety. We  should  remember  that  society  outgrows  its 
institutions  just  as  a  boy  becomes  too  big  for  his  clothes, 
and  that  in  a  metaphorical  sense  the  past  is  strewed  with 
cast-off  garments. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter  very  minutely  into  the 
land  question,  my  conception  of  its  nature  being  very 
different  from  that  usually  entertained  among  students  of 
the  problem,  but,  the  land  question  being  a  special  form 
of  perpetuated  monopoly,  it  is  interesting  to  trace  its 
ramifications  in  the  early  writings  of  Herbert  Spencer, 
embodied  in  his  Social  Slatics,  and  in  the  works  of  our 
American  reformer,  Henry  George,  who  is  now  at  war 
with  Mr.  Spencer  l  because  the  latter  has  apparently  de- 
cided to  sacrifice  human  rights  on  the  altar  of  Mammon. 
The  essential  evil  of  private  or  perpetual  ownership  is 
that  when  all  the  available,  or  useful,  or  fertile  land  in 
any  country  is  apportioned  among  its  people  under  pri- 
vate ownership,  the  earth  will  continue  turning  around 
every  twenty-four  hours.  Meanwhile  men  will  go  out  of 
the  country  by  death,  and  other  men  come  into  it  by 
birth,  just  as  if  the  land  remained  accessible  to  the  entire 
people  under  common  ownership.  In  about  seventy-five 
years  later  than  any  date  which  may  be  selected,  the 
1  See  "  A  Perplexed  Philosopher,"  by  Henry  George. 


140  KING   MAMMON. 

people  who  then  live  in  that  country  will  be  a  new  people, 
for  those  who  agree  in  the  present  or  who  agreed  in  the 
past  to  distribute  the  land,  will  have  died  and  returned  to 
dust.  Some  of  the  new  men  will  have  land,  gained,  prob- 
ably, by  inheritance,  a  few  of  them  will  own  vast  tracts 
of  farming  land,  and  others  will  possess  smaller  but  infin- 
itely more  valuable  tracts  in  the  great  centers  of  popula- 
tion. Many  of  the  new  population,  sometimes  on  account 
of  their  own  characteristics,  but  often  from  the  mere  differ- 
ence in  ancestry,  will  possess  neither  land  nor  anything 
they  can  exchange  for  land.  They  will  be  confronted  at 
their  birth  by  the  agents  of  the  most  gigantic  of  all  mo- 
nopolies— the  private  absorption  and  absolute  individual 
control  of  land,  from  which  is  derived  all  other  wealth. 
Society  has  established  a  system  by  which  inheritance 
and  disinheritance  are  handed  down  to  future  generations, 
side  by  side,  without  any  justice  in  its  methods. 

In  the  United  States  our  land  laws  have  met  the  exigen- 
cies of  the  present  very  satisfactorily,  and  homesteads 
have  been  popular  with  the  people,  but  these  laws  will 
provide  for  the  future  no  better  than  any  other  laws  estab- 
lishing private  ownership.  Great  trouble  will  result  if  the 
present  system  remains  intact  long  enough  for  land  to  be- 
come thoroughly  appropriated  and  monopolized  among  a 
denser  population. 

The  history  of  water-rights  in  California  is  a  curious 
record  of  changes  in  the  nature  of  ownership  within 
a  brief  period.  When  the  territory  was  obtained  from 
Mexico  and  received  its  first  settlers  from  the  United 
States,  the  water  of  the  flowing  streams  was  supposed  to 
belong  equally  to  the  people  under  the  doctrine  of  ripa- 
rian rights,  each  occupant  of  the  banks  having  the  right 
of  use,  but  no  right  of  pollution  or  diversion. 

When  gold  was  discovered,  on  this  account  the  pres- 
ence of  a  large  body  of  water  in  an  auriferous  channel 


KING   MAMMON.  141 

was  an  obstruction  to  mining,  and  its  diversion  and  use 
among  the  surrounding  hills  and  ravines  ^  benefit,  so 
laws  were  adopted,  permitting  the  right  of  private  appro- 
priation under  certain  formalities  in  which  priority  of 
appropriation  and  use  involving  labor  were  the  cardinal 
principles. 

Diverted  into  ditches  and  canals  throughout  the  gold- 
producing  region,  the  waters  of  the  streams,  once  re- 
garded as  the  property  of  all,  thus  became  private  prop- 
erty, which  was  sold  at  a  varying  price  for  a  quantity 
designated  as  a  miner's  inch.  A  substance  that  had  for- 
merly been  regarded  as  the  property  of  everybody,  quite 
as  much  so  as  air,  was  therefore  sold  by  measurement  like 
land  or  cloth. 

Finally,  after  the  shallow  places  were  exhausted  by 
mining,  and  the  extensive  orchards  of  the  state  were 
planted,  the  demands  for  water  to  be  used  in  irrigation 
became  so  urgent  that  the  people  went  back  again  to  a 
species  of  public  ownership  under  laws  providing  for  the 
condemnation  and  purchase  of  private  water-rights  by 
the  people  associated  in  irrigation  districts,  in  which  the 
water  again  became  public  property. 

People  usually  regard  the  nature  of  ownership  in  air 
as  being  somewhat  different  from  ownership  in  water, 
and  vastly  different  from  the  ownership  of  land.  The 
difference  is  only  apparent,  however,  for  if  a  man  should 
occupy  a  piece  of  land  to  which  society  had  given  him  a 
title  and  should  fill  three  bottles,  one  with  air,  another  with 
water,  and  a  third  with  earth  from  his  premises,  his  right 
to  one  is  exactly  as  complete  or  as  incomplete  as  his 
right  to  another.  When  the  amount  of  water  is  infinitely 
great  compared  with  the  needs  of  the  people,  as  in  the 
Mississippi  River  or  the  ocean,  it  is  held  as  public  property, 
just  as  the  air  is  held,  but  when  limited  by  location  and 
demand  it  has  been  subjected  to  private  ownership  like 


142  KING   MAMMON. 

the  land.  The  entire  surface  of  the  United  States  was 
originally  public  property  like  the  waters  of  the  great 
lakes  and  streams,  but  it  has  been  reduced  to  private 
ownership  by  the  operation  of  the  various  distributive 
laws.  Public  ownership  now  exists  only  in  comparatively 
barren  portions  of  the  country  and  in  certain  parks  and 
reservations  retained  by  the  people  collectively.  The 
tribes  of  Indian  Territory,  however,  follow  the  universal 
custom  of  uncivilized  people  in  regarding  the  land  as 
something  absolutely  incapable  of  private  ownership,  and 
therefore,  the  individuals  of  these  remnants  of  the  former 
inhabitants  occupy  their  land  merely  as  tenants.  All 
the  native  tribes  of  America  were  deeply  impressed 
with  the  idea  that  the  land  they  occupied  belonged  to  pos- 
terity quite  as  much  as  to  the  occupants  at  any  period. 
Instances  have  been  noted  where  this  idea  was  so  strong  in 
the  minds  of  savages  that  they  refused  to  sell  their  lands  to 
the  whites  on  the  ground  that  they  could  not  dispose  of 
the  rights  of  future  members  of  the  tribe.  These  features 
of  the  land  question  are  trite  to  those  who  have  investi- 
gated the  subject,  and  they  are  here  mentioned  only  to 
show  that  air,  water,  and  land  are  essentially  the  same 
in  their  nature  so  far  as  human  rights  in  them  are  con- 
cerned. Land  and  water  have  both  been  held  and  are 
now  held  under  private  ownership,  and  air  is  really  held 
in  the  same  way,  but  its  nature  is  such  that  it  cannot  be 
monopolized  so  as  to  oppress  anybody.  Theoretically, 
a  man's  property  under  the  name  of  a  square  mile  of 
land,  is  a  spherical  pyramid,  its  apex  in  the  center  of  the 
earth  and  its  base  at  the  outer  limits  of  the  atmosphere, 
although  the  colossal  pretensions  of  those  who  believe 
in  the  doctrine  of  a  divinity  and  a  perpetuation  of  rights 
to  land,  may  contend  that  the  sides  of  their  pyramid  are 
prolonged  infinitely  into  space.  As  the  possession  of  a 
few  billions  of  miles  more  or  less  in  that  direction  will 


KING   MAMMON.  143 

not  cause  much  trouble  in  society,  however,  we  will  not 
proceed  to  discuss  that  portion  of  the  assumed  rights  to 
landed  estates. 

This  pyramidal  property,  however,  if  it  be  of  any  value 
to  men,  contains  air  above  the  land,  and  both  air  and 
water  in  the  surface  soil,  so  that  earth,  air,  and  water  are 
necessarily  held  together  inseparably  by  any  la'nd  title. 
There  is  no  difference  whatever  in  the  ethics  of  man's 
possession  of  these  three  elements,  for  when  he  has  land 
he  possesses  all.  If  the  private  ownership  of  one  is 
wrong,  the  other  two  are  held  quite  as  unjustly. 

The  theory  of  the  land  reformers  is  that  the  entire  land 
surface  of  any  country  should  remain  the  property  of  the 
whole  people,  and  that  it  should,  if  allotted,  be  distributed 
in  the  hands  not  of  owners,  but  of  tenants,  who  would  pay 
their  rents  to  the  public,  either  in  the  form  of  special  land 
taxes,  or  by  regular  rent  payments  into  the  public  treas- 
uries, instead  of  to  private  landlords.  Thus  all  who  exist 
at  any  particular  instant  are  supposed  to  have  absolutely 
equal  rights  of  use  in  the  land,  air,  and  water,  and  every 
person  actually  in  possession  becomes  the  tenant  of  the 
community. 

The  land  question  is  here  described  only  in  a  casual  way 
in  order  to  develop  and  expose  what  seems  to  be  a  strange 
fallacy  in  the  conceptions  of  many  vigorous  thinkers 
who  have  written  of  the  rights  to  property.  In  a  preced- 
ing chapter  has  been  illustrated  the  absurdity  of  the  an- 
cient idea  that  mere  occupancy  by  previous  birth  can 
give  to  any  man  the  exclusive  right  to  any  portion  of  the 
earth  that  has  not  been  transformed  by  the  application  of 
his  labor.  The  reader's  attention  is  now  directed  to  the 
almost  universal  belief  among  the  foremost  thinkers  of 
the  age,  that  rights  to  land  are  in  their  nature  very  different 
from  rights  to  buildings  and  other  improvements,  and  to 


144  KING   MAMMON. 

all  kinds  of  personal  property,  such  as  machinery,  money 
and  cloth. 

Briefly  stated,  the  ideas  of  these  writers  are  that,  while 
land  can  never  be  justly  held  as  private  property,  sub- 
ject to  the  absolute  disposal  of  the  owner  in  every  way, 
all  kinds  of  improvements  and  personal  property  can, 
nevertheless,  become  subject  to  private  ownership  and 
transfer  by  gift,  sale,  and  bequest  without  the  develop- 
ment of  social  wrongs.  In  the  minds  of  these  thinkers 
there  exists  a  similarity  or  identity  between  air,  water,  and 
land,  by  which  all  are  unfit  for  private  ownership  ;  but 
there  exists  a  radical  difference  between  these  three  ele- 
ments and  the  infinite  number  and  variety  of  developed 
products  of  human  labor  by  which  the  latter  can  justly 
become  private  property  and  be  rightfully  bequeathed. 

Are  these  writers  correct  in  their  conclusions  ?  It  may 
seem  pretentious  to  question  the  deductions  of  thinkers 
like  John  Stuart  Mill,  Herbert  Spencer,  and  Henry 
George,  but  in  defense  of  inquiry,  the  latter  has  forcibly 
said,  "we,  too,  are  men,"  although  we  may  not  be  phil- 
osophers. Let  us  inquire  and  think  independently.  In 
the  first  place  we  will  note  the  conclusions  of  this  class 
of  reasoners.  Mr.  Mill  says  in  reference  to  land  tenures  : 

' '  When  the  '  sacredness  of  property  '  is  talked  of  it  should 
always  be  remembered  that  any  such  sacredness  does 
not  belong  in  the  same  degree  to  landed  property.  No 
one  made  the  land.  It  is  the  original  inheritance  of  the 
whole  species.  Its  appropriation  is  wholly  a  question  of 
general  expediency. 

"When  private  property  in  land  is  not  expedient,  it  is 
unjust.  It  is  no  hardship  to  any  one  to  be  excluded  from 
what  others  have  produced ;  they  were  not  bound  to 
produce  it  for  his  use,  and  he  loses  nothing  by  not  shar- 
ing in  what  otherwise  would  not  have  existed  at  all. 
But  it  is  some  hardship  to  be  born  into  the  world  and  to 
find  all  nature's  gifts  previously  engrossed,  and  no  place 
left  for  the  new-comer.  To  reconcile  people  to  this, 


KING   MAMMON.  145 

after  they  have  once  admitted  into  their  minds  the  idea 
that  any  moral  rights  belong  to  them  as  human  beings, 
it  will  always  be  necessary  to  convince  them  that  the  ex- 
clusive appropriation  is  good  for  mankind  on  the  whole, 
themselves  included.  But  this  is  what  no  sane  human 
being  could  be  persuaded  of,  if  the  relation  between  the 
landowner  and  the  cultivator  were  the  same  everywhere 
as  it  has  been  in  Ireland. 

"  Landed  property  is  felt  even  by  those  most  tenacious 
of  its  rights,  to  be  a  different  thing  from  other  property  ; 
and  where  the  bulk  of  the  community  have  been  disin- 
herited of  their  share  of  it,  and  it  has  become  the  exclu- 
sive attribute  of  a  small  minority,  men  have  generally 
tried  to  reconcile  it,  at  least  in  theory,  to  their  sense  of 
justice,  by  endeavoring  to  attach  duties  to  it,  and  erect- 
ing it  into  a  sort  of  magistracy,  either  moral  or  legal. 
But  if  the  state  is  at  liberty  to  treat  the  possessors  of  land 
as  public  functionaries,  it  is  only  going  one  step  further 
to  say  that  it  is  at  liberty  to  discard  them.  The  claim  of 
the  landowners  to  the  land  is  altogether  subordinate  to 
the  general  policy  of  the  state.  The  principle  of  property 
gives  them  no  right  to  the  land,  but  only  a  right  of  com- 
pensation for  whatever  portion  of  their  interest  in  the 
land  it  may  be  the  policy  of  the  state  to  deprive  them  of. 
To  that  their  claim  is  indefeasible.  It  is  due  to  land- 
owners, and  to  owners  of  any  property  whatever,  recog- 
nized as  such  by  the  state,  that  they  should  not  be  dis- 
possessed of  it  without  receiving  its  pecuniary  value. 
This  is  due  on  the  general  principles  on  which  property 
rests. 

"When  the  property  is  of  a  kind  to  which  peculiar 
affections  attach  themselves,  the  compensation  ought  to 
exceed  a  bare  pecuniary  equivalent.  .  .  .  To  me  it  seems 
almost  an  axiom  that  property  in  land  should  be  inter- 
preted strictly,  and  that  the  balance  in  all  cases  of  doubt 
should  incline  against  the  proprietor.  The  reverse  is  the 
case  with  property  in  movables,  and  in  all  things  the 
product  of  labor  ;  over  these,  the  owner's  power  both  of 
use  and  of  exclusion  should  be  absolute,  except  where 
positive  evil  to  others  would  result  from  it ;  but  in  the 
case  of  land,  no  exclusive  right  should  be  permitted  in 
any  individual  which  cannot  be  shown  to  be  productive 
of  positive  good." 


146  KING   MAMMON. 

These  extracts  from  the  writings  of  Mr.  Mill  will 
sufficiently  indicate  the  position  he  occupied  on  the  land 
question.  He  evidently  considered  land  unfit  for  private 
property  and  radically  different  from  all  the  movable  or 
immovable  products  of  man's  labor.  According  to  his 
theory,  a  man  could  justly  own  a  house  or  a  machine, 
but  not  a  farm.  Notwithstanding  this  idea,  however, 
Mr.  Mill  would  compensate  owners  for  what  they  cannot 
justly  own,  and  even  pay  them  something  additional  for 
special  damages  to  their  affections.  This  idea  of  owning 
the  value  of  land  and  not  owning  the  land  itself  is  so 
queer  that  we  may  suspect  a  fallacy  in  the  author's 
reasoning,  but  not  being  critics  for  amusement  we  will 
let  that  oddity  pass,  merely  noting  that  he  thinks  men 
can  justly  own  anything  but  land. 

In  Social  Statics,  one  of  the  early  publications  of 
Herbert  Spencer's  series  of  books,  the  author  boldly  and 
vigorously  enunciates  the  rights  of  man  and  defines  their 
limitations  with  a  freedom  from  timidity  and  subservience 
to  wealth  that  is  in  strange  contrast  with  his  more 
recent  writings.  Under  the  heading  of  "The  Right  to  the 
Use  of  the  Earth,"  he  says  : 

"  Given  a  race  of  beings  having  like  claims  to  pursue  the 
objects  of  their  desires — given  a  world  adapted  to  the 
gratification  of  those  desires — a  world  into  which  such 
beings  are  similarly  born,  and  it  unavoidably  follows 
that  they  have  equal  rights  to  the  use  of  this  world.  For 
if  each  of  them  '  has  freedom  to  do  all  that  he  wills 
provided  he  infringes  not  the  equal  freedom  of  any  other/ 
then  each  of  them  is  free  to  use  the  earth  for  the  satis- 
faction of  his  wants,  provided  he  allows  all  others  the 
same  liberty.  And  conversely,  it  is  manifest  that  no  one, 
or  part  of  them,  may  use  the  earth  in  such  a  way  as  to 
prevent  the  rest  from  similarly  using  it ;  seeing  that  to 
do  this  is  to  assume  greater  freedom  than  the  rest,  and 
consequently  to  break  the  law. 

"Equity,  therefore,  does  not  permit  property  in  land. 


KING   MAMMON.  147 

For  if  one  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  may  justly  be- 
come the  possession  of  an  individual,  and  may  be  held 
by  him  for  his  sole  use  and  benefit,  as  a  thing  to  which 
he  has  an  exclusive  right,  then  other  portions  of  the 
earth's  surface  may  be  so  held ;  and  eventually  the  whole 
of  the  earth's  surface  may  be  so  held ;  and  our  planet 
may  thus  lapse  altogether  in  private  hands.  Observe 
now  the  dilemma  to^  which  this  leads.  Supposing  the 
entire  habitable  globe  to  be  so  enclosed,  it  follows  that  if 
the  landowners  have  a  valid  right  to  its  surface,  all  who 
are  not  landowners  have  no  right  at  all  to  its  surface. 
Hence,  such  can  exist  on  the  earth  by  sufferance  only. 
They  are  all  trespassers.  Save  by  the  permission  of  the 
lords  of  the  soil,  they  can  have  no  room  for  the  soles  of 
their  feet.  Nay,  should  the  others  think  fit  to  deny  them 
a  resting-place,  these  landless  men  might  equitably  be 
expelled  from  the  earth  altogether.  If,  then,  the  assump- 
tion that  land  can  be  held  as  property,  involves  that 
the  whole  globe  may  become  the  private  domain  of 
a  part  of  its  inhabitants  ;  and  if,  by  consequence,  the 
rest  of  its  inhabitants  can  then  exercise  their  faculties — 
can  then  exist  even — only  by  consent  of  the  landowners  ; 
it  is  manifest,  that  an  exclusive  possession  of  the  soil 
necessitates  an  infringement  of  the  law  of  equal  freedom. 
For,  men  who  cannot  'live  and  move  and  have  their 
being '  without  the  leave  of  others,  cannot  be  equally 
free  with  these  others. 

"Passing  from  the  consideration  of  the  possible  to  that 
of  the  actual,  we  find  yet  further  reason  to  deny  the  rec- 
titude of  property  in  land.  It  can  never  be  pretended 
that  the  existing  titles  to  such  property  are  legitimate. 
Should  any  one  think  so,  let  him  look  in  the  chronicles. 
Violence,  fraud,  the  prerogative  of  force,  the  claims  of 
superior  cunning — these  are  the  sources  to  which  those 
titles  may  be  traced.  The  original  deeds  were  written 
with  the  sword,  rather  than  with  the  pen  ;  not  lawyers,  but 
soldiers,  were  the  conveyancers ;  and  for  seals,  blood 
was  used  in  preference  to  wax.  Could  valid  claims  be 
thus  constituted?  Hardly.  And  if  not,  what  becomes 
of  the  pretensions  of  all  subsequent  holders  of  estates  so 
obtained?  Does  sale  or  bequest  generate  aright  where  it 
did  not  previously  exist?  Would  the  original  claimants 
be  nonsuited  at  the  bar  of  reason,  because  the  thing 


148  KING   MAMMON. 

stolen  from  them  had  changed  hands?  Certainly  not. 
And  if  one  act  of  transfer  can  give  no  title,  can  many  ? 
No  ;  though  nothing  be  multiplied  forever,  it  will  not  pro- 
duce one.  Even  the  law  recognizes  this  principle.  An 
existing  holder  must,  if  called  upon,  substantiate  the 
claims  of  those  from  whom  he  purchased  or  inherited  his 
property  ;  and  any  flaw  in  the  original  parchment,  even 
though  the  property  should  have  had  a  score  of  inter- 
mediate owners,  quashes  his  right. 


"Not  only  have  present  land-tenures  an  indefensible 
origin,  but  it  is  impossible  to  discover  any  mode  in  which 
land  can  become  private  property.  Cultivation  is  com- 
monly considered  to  give  a  legitimate  title.  He  who  has 
reclaimed  a  tract  of  ground  from  its  primitive  wildness,  is 
supposed  to  have  thereby  made  it  his  own.  But  if  his 
right  is  disputed,  by  what  system  of  logic  can  he  vindi- 
cate it  ? 


"  It  does  indeed  at  first  sight  seem  possible  for  the  earth 
to  become  the  exclusive  possession  of  individuals  by  some 
process  of  equitable  distribution.  'Why/  it  may  be 
asked,  '  should  not  man  agree  to  a  fair  subdivision  ?  If 
all  are  co-heirs,  why  may  not  the  estate  be  equally  ap- 
portioned, and  each  be  afterwards  perfect  master  of  his 
own  share  ? ' 

"  To  this  question  it  may  in  the  first  place  be  replied,  that 
such  a  division  is  vetoed  by  the  difficulty  of  fixing  the 
values  of  respective  tracts  of  land.  Variations  in  produc- 
tiveness, different  degrees  of  accessibility,  advantages  of 
climate,  proximity  to  the  centres  of  civilization — these, 
and  other  such  considerations,  remove  the  problem  out  of 
the  sphere  of  mere  mensuration  into  the  region  of  impos- 
sibility. 

"  But,  waiving  this,  let  us  inquire  who  are  to  be  the  allot- 
tees. Shall  adult  males,  and  all  who  have  reached 
twenty-one  on  a  specified  day,  be  the  fortunate  individ- 
uals? If  so,  what  is  to  be  done  with  those  who  come 
of  age  on  the  morrow?  Is  it  proposed  that  each  man, 
woman,  and  child  shall  have  a  section  ?  If  so,  what  be- 


KING    MAMMON.  149 

comes  of  all  who  are  to  be  born  next  year  ?  And  what 
will  be  the  fate  of  those  whose  fathers  sell  their  estates  and 
squander  their  proceeds?  These  portionless  ones  must 
constitute  a  class  already  described  as  having  no  right  to 
a  resting-place  on  earth — as  living  by  the  sufferance  of 
their  fellow-men — as  being  practically  serfs.  And  the 
existence  of  such  a  class  is  wholly  at  variance  with  the 
law  of  equal  freedom. 

"Until,  therefore,  we  can  produce  a  valid  commission 
authorizing  us  to  make  this  distribution — until  it  can  be 
proved  that  God  has  given  one  charter  of  privileges  to  one 
generation,  and  another  to  the  next — until  we  can  demon- 
strate that  men  born  after  a  certain  date  are  doomed  to 
slavery,  we  must  consider  that  no  such  allotment  is 
permissible. 


"But  to  what  does  this  doctrine  that  men  are  equally 
entitled  to  the  use  of  the  earth,  lead  ?  Must  we  return 
to  the  times  of  unenclosed  wilds,  and  subsist  on  roots, 
berries,  and  game  ?  Or  are  we  to  be  left  to  the  manage- 
ment of  Messrs.  Fourier,  Owen,  Louis  Blanc,  and  Co.  ? 

' '  Neither.  Such  a  doctrine  is  consistent  with  the  highest 
state  of  civilization  ;  may  be  carried  out  without  involv- 
ing a  community  of  goods ;  and  need  cause  no  very 
serious  revolution  in  existing  arrangements.  The  change 
required  would  simply  be  a  change  of  landlords.  Separ- 
ate ownerships  would  merge  into  the  joint-stock  owner- 
ship of  the  public.  Instead  of  being  in  the  possession  of 
individuals,  the  country  would  be  held  by  the  great  cor- 
porate body — Society.  Instead  of  leasing  his  acres  from 
an  isolated  proprietor,  the  farmer  would  lease  them  from 
the  nation.  Instead  of  paying  his  rent  to  the  agent  of 
Sir  John  or  his  Grace,  he  would  pay  it  to  an  agent  or  de- 
puty agent  of  the  community.  Stewards  would  be  public 
officials  instead  of  private  ones  ;  and  tenancy  the  only 
land  tenure. 


"No  doubt  great  difficulties  must  attend  the  resumption, 
by  mankind  at  large,  of  their  rights  to  the  soil.  The 
question  of  compensation  to  existing  proprietors  is  a 


150  KING   MAMMON. 

complicated  one — one  that  perhaps  cannot  be  settled  in 
a  strictly  equitable  manner.  Had  we  to  deal  with  the 
parties  who  originally  robbed  the  human  race  of  its  heri- 
tage, we  might  make  short  work  of  the  matter.  But,  un- 
fortunately, most  of  our  present  landowners  are  men  who 
have,  either  mediately  or  immediately — either  by  their 
own  acts,  or  by  the  acts  of  their  ancestors — given  for 
their  estates,  equivalents  of  honestly-earned  wealth,  be- 
lieving that  they  were  investing  their  savings  in  a  legit- 
imate manner.  To  justly  estimate  and  liquidate  the 
claims  of  such,  is  one  of  the  most  intricate  problems  that 
society  will  one  day  have  to  solve.  But  with  this  per- 
plexity and  our  extrication  from  it,  abstract  morality  has 
no  concern.  Men  having  got  themselves  into  the  di- 
lemma, by  disobedience  to  the  law,  must  get  out  of  it  as 
well  as  they  can  ;  and  with  as  little  injury  to  the  landed 
class  as  may  be." 

The  opinions  of  these  writers  are  repeated  here  with- 
out entire  approval,  for  it  seems  to  me  they  have  viewed 
the  rights  of  men  dimly  through  a  glass  obscured  by  their 
unconscious  subservience  to  and  acceptance  of  existing 
customs.  It  will  be  observed  that  Mr.  Spencer  absolutely 
denies  the  right  of  private  property  in  land,  but  admits 
that  compensation  to  existing  possessors  who  either  pur- 
chased lands  themselves  or  inherited  it  from  ancestors 
who  had  purchased  it  with  the  proceeds  of  labor,  would 
be  justice.  The  plain  inference  from  his  writings  is  that 
he  conceives  that  no  man  can  justly  acquire  ownership 
in  land,  but  that  any  man  can  acquire  an  absolute  right 
of  property  in  anything  that  is  the  product  of  his  own 
exertions,  for  instance,  a  tool  or  a  garment.  Mr.  Spencer 
does  not  deny  the  right  of  property  in  general,  but  only 
the  right  of  property  in  land,  for  he  opposes  socialism 
and  communism,  and  distinctly  asserts  that  a  right  of 
private  property  exists  and  must  be  maintained. 

The  author  of  Progress  and  Poverty,  whose  writings 
have  attracted  greater  popular  attention  than  those  of  the 


KING   MAMMON.  I  51 

other  authors  on  the  land  question,  is  very  positive  and 
explicit  in  his  views.  In  the  work  just  mentioned  he 
says  : 

"What  most  prevents  the  realization  of  the  injustice  of 
private  property  in  land  is  the  habit  of  including-  all  the 
things  that  are  made  the  subject  of  ownership  in  one 
category,  as  property  ;  or,  if  any  distinction  is  made,  draw- 
ing the  line  according  to  the  unphilosophical  distinction 
of  the  lawyers,  between  personal  property  and  real  estate, 
or  things  movable  and  things  immovable.  The  real  and 
natural  distinction  is  between  things  which  are  the  produce 
of  labor  and  things  which  are  the  gratuitous  offerings  of 
nature. 

"A  house  and  the  lot  on  which  it  stands  are  alike  prop- 
erty, as  being  the  subject  of  ownership,  and  are  classed 
by  the  lawyers  as  real  estate.  Yet  in  nature  and  rela- 
tions they  differ  widely.  The  one  is  produced  by  human 
labor.  The  other  is  a  part  of  nature.  The  essential 
character  of  the  one  class  of  things  is  that  they  embody 
.abor,  are  brought  into  being  by  human  exertion,  their 
existence  or  non-existence,  their  increase  or  diminution, 
depending  on  man.  The  essential  character  of  the 
other  class  of  things  is  that  they  do  not  embody  labor, 
and  exist  irrespective  of  human  exertion  and  irrespec- 
tive of  man  ;  they  are  the  field  or  environment  in  which 
man  finds  himself;  the  storehouse  from  which  his  needs 
must  be  supplied  ;  the  raw  material  upon  which,  and 
the  forces  with  which  his  labor  alone  can  act.  .  .  . 

"  The  equal  right  of  all  men  to  the  use  of  land  is  as  clear 
as  their  equal  right  to  breathe  the  air — it  is  a  right  pro- 
claimed by  the  fact  of  their  existence.  For  we  cannot 
suppose  that  some  men  have  a  right  to  be  in  this  world 
and  others  no  right.  .  .  . 

"Whenever  the  people,  having  the  power,  choose  to 
annul  land  titles,  no  objection  can  be  made  in  the  name 
of  justice.  There  have  existed  men  who  had  the  power  to 
hold  or  to  give  exclusive  possession  of  portions  of  the 
earth's  surface,  but  when  and  where  did  there  exist  the 
human  being  who  had  the  right. 

"The  right  to  exclusive  ownership  of  any  thing  of  human 
production  is  clear.  No  matter  how  many  the  hands 


152  KING   MAMMON. 

through  which  it  has  passed,  there  was,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  line,  human  labor — some  one  who,  having  procured 
or  produced  it  by  his  exertions,  had  to  it  a  clear  title  as 
against  all  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  which  could  justly 
pass  from  one  to  another  by  sale  or  gift. 

"  But  at  the  end  of  what  string  of  conveyances  or  grants 
can  be  shown  or  supposed  a  like  title  to  any  part  of  the 
material  universe  ?  To  improvements — such  an  original 
title  can  be  shown  ;  but  it  is  a  title  only  to  the  improve- 
ments, and  not  to  the  land  itself." 

These  extracts  from  Progress  and  Poverty  are  sup- 
plemented by  the  following  from  A  Perplexed  Philoso- 
pher, in  which  Mr.  George  exposes  the  insincerity  and 
inconsistency  of  Mr.  Spencer's  later  utterances  on  the 
land  problem  : 

"Property — not  property  in  the  legal  sense,  for  that 
may  be  anything  which  greed  or  perversity  may  have 
power  to  ordain  ;  but  property  in  the  ethical  sense — 
is  that  which  carries  with  it  the  right  of  exclusive  own- 
ership, including  the  right  to  give,  sell,  bequeath,  or 
destroy. 

"To  what  sort  of  things  does  such  right  of  ownership 
rightfully  attach  ? 

"Clearly  to  things  produced  by  labor  and  to  no 
other.  .  .  . 

"The  ethical  right  of  property  is  so  perfectly  clear  as  to 
be  beyond  all  dispute.  It  springs  from  the  right  of  each 
man  to  use  his  own  powers  and  enjoy  their  results.  And 
it  is  a  full  and  absolute  right.  Whatever  a  man  produces 
belongs  to  him  exclusively,  and  the  same  full  and  ex- 
clusive right  passes  from  him  to  his  grantee,  assignee, 
or  devisee,  not  to  the  amount  of  eighty  or  fifty  or  any- 
other  percentage,  but  in  full.  .  .  . 

"Compensation  [for  the  abolishment  of  land  titles  ]  im- 
plies equivalence.  To  compensate  for  the  discontinuance 
of  a  wrong  is  to  give  those  who  profit  by  the  wrong  the 
pecuniary  equivalent  of  its  continuance.  Now  the  state 
has  nothing  that  does  not  belong  to  the  individuals  who 
compose  it.  What  it  gives  to  some  it  must  take  from 
others.  Abolition  with  compensation  is,  therefore,  not  really 


KING   MAMMON.  153 

abolition,  but  continuance  under  a  different  form.  .  .  . 
That  confusion  alone  gives  plausibility  to  the  idea  of 
compensation  for  refusal  to  continue  wrong,  is  seen  in 
the  fact  that  such  claims  are  never  put  forward  in  behalf 
of  the  original  beneficiaries  of  the  wrong,  but  always  in 
behalf  of  the  purchasers.  ...  All  pleas  for  compen- 
sation on  the  abolition  of  unequal  rights  to  land  are  ex- 
cuses for  avoiding  right  and  continuing  wrong." 

Mr.  George,  therefore,  differs  from  the  two  other  authors 
here  quoted  by  denying  the  right  of  landowners  to 
compensation  if  land  titles  shall  be  abolished  and  land 
thus  become  nationalized  ;  and  as  a  method  of  procedure 
he  has  very  persistently  urged  the  single  land  tax,  which, 
under  his  theory,  would  operate  as  a  means  of  compelling 
all  landowners  to  pay  rent  in  the  form  of  taxes  to  the 
community,  thus  installing  the  community  as  owner, 
and  reducing  private  owners  to  tenants.  In  its  real 
nature  the  single  land  tax  does  not  differ  from  the  actual 
abolition  of  land  titles,  except  in  being  a  more  gradual 
method  of  appropriation.  It  cuts  the  dog's  tail  off  an 
inch  at  a  time  instead  of  at  one  blow. 

Mr.  Spencer  and  Mr.  George  both  begin  with  a  clear 
statement  and  abundant  proof  that  land  cannot  justly 
remain  private  property,  and  multitudes  of  people  now 
agree  with  them  in  this  conclusion  ;  but  they  differ  on 
the  question  of  compensation  to  existing  owners,  Mr. 
Spencer  approving  the  idea  of  compensation  and  Mr. 
George  positively  denying  it,  while  neither  philosopher 
is  able  to  make  a  clear  and  convincing  argument  for  his 
side  of  the  question.  For  instance,  if  a  man  can  really 
have  no  right  of  ownership  in  land,  why  should  society 
pay  "him  for  something  that  he  has  not  got,  that  he  never 
had,  and  that  he  never  can  have  ?  On  the  other  hand, 
if  John  Smith,  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  pays  this 
government  for  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  land, 
clears  it,  fences  it,  cultivates  it,  and  makes  his  home 


154  KING   MAMMON. 

upon  it  by  his  own  exertions,  or  if  John  Smith  as  a  laborer 
saves  $5,000  from  his  earnings  and  purchases  a  piece  of 
unimproved  land  with  his  money,  and  either  the  single 
land  tax  or  land  nationalization  be  then  effected  and  the 
value  of  his  land  destroyed,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  it 
is  likely  that  it  will  require  more  than  the  arguments  of 
the  single-taxers  to  convince  people  that  Smith  has  been 
fairly  treated.  The  fact  that  Mr.  George  has  been  con- 
stantly compelled  in  almost  every  chapter  of  his  writings 
to  iterate  and  reiterate  that  his  theories  do  not  apply  to 
improvements  on  land,  but  to  the  land  itself,  no  matter 
if  ijt  be  a  small  spot  of  ground  covered  by  one  of  Chicago's 
high  buildings,  and  that  Mr.  Spencer  has  been  compelled 
to  advise  paying  money  to  people  for  something  that  he 
says  they  cannot  own,  shdlild  convince  both  these  writers 
that  some  of  their  assumptions  in  regard  to  the  rights  of 
men  and  the  nature  of  property  must  be  fallacious. 

As  Professor  Huxley  has  hinted  to  these  authors,  men 
either  own  or  do  not  own  both  land  and  cabbages.  When 
we  deny  all  rights  of  ownership  in  land,  and  then  offer 
compensation  for  what  a  man  cannot  own,  or  deny  com- 
pensation in  cases  where  denial  is  obviously  unfair, 
there  must  be  a  fallacy  in  reaching  our  conclusions. 

It  is  claimed,  therefore,  that  the  writers  herein  men- 
tioned, who  are  the  leaders  of  a  host  of  followers  drawing 
similar  conclusions  from  the  circumstances  of  land  occu- 
pancy, have  only  perceived  a  portion  of  the  real  truths 
underlying  what  are  called  the  rights  to  property,  and 
that  the  errors  at  the  basis  of  their  arguments  lead  to  in- 
consistency at  the  close,  by  which  the  brightest  intellects 
making  the  same  assumptions  at  the  beginning,  are  un- 
able to  draw  really  satisfactory  conclusions  at  the  end. 
In  the  first  place,  we  can  positively  deny  what  they  ap- 
parently regard  as  self-evident,  that  a  difference  exists  in 
the  nature  of  the  rights  involved  in'  the  possession  of  land 


KING   MAMMON.  155 

as  distinguished  from  the  possession  of  other  things,  and 
we  can  also  deny  that  any  moral  right  whatever  exists 
by  which  a  man  can  claim  any  kind  of  property  in  the 
sense  that  it  is  an  exclusive  possession  and  at  the  same 
time  a  perpetuity.  We  may  contend  that  any  man's 
right  to  his  land  is  quite  as  perfect  as  his  right  to  the  coat 
he  wears  or  the  house  he  occupies,  all  being  acquired  by 
the  same  methods,  but  that  no  man's  right  in  anything 
whatever  can  extend  beyond  his  lifetime  or  be  justly 
converted  into  a  succession.  It  may  be  proved  to  un- 
biased minds  that  man  is  merely  a  tenant  under  a  life 
lease,  and  that  earthly  possessions  are  not  property,  in 
the  usual  significance  of  that  word,  but  a  usufruct. 

All  that  is  desired  of  the  reader  is  careful  attention  to 
the  reasons  to  be  adduced  for  these  conclusions,  and  a 
fair  consideration  of  the  whole  problem.  The  people  of 
the  civilized  world  ought  to  be  too  intelligent  at  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  century  to  continue  to  ridicule  and  revile 
free  speech,  no  matter  how  radical  its  conclusions,  pro- 
vided it  be  temperate  and  peaceable. 

Property  is  an  institution  established  for  the  supposed 
benefit  of  man,  and  human  creatures  are  not  on  earth 
solely  to  do  reverence  to  their  own  handiwork.  There  is 
nothing  sacred  about  the  so-called  rights  of  property,  for, 
like  all  other  human  institutions  when  carried  to  an  ex- 
treme, these  rights  have  become  wrongs.  We  need  to 
remember  that  wealth  was  produced  for  men  ;  not  men 
for  wealth. 


156  KING   MAMMON. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE    SUPREMACY    OF    EGOTISM. 

So  man,  the  moth,  is  not  afraid,  it  seems, 
To  span   Omnipotence,  and  measure  might 
That  knows  no  measure,  by  the  scanty  rule 
And  standard  of  his  own,  that  is  to-day, 
And  is  not  ere  to-morroiv's  siingoes  down. 

— WILLIAM  COWPER. 

BEFORE  we  commence  our  investigation  of  the  rights  of 
property,  let  us  consider  what  is  meant  by  owning  a 
thing.  If  anything  be  my  property,  in  the  complete 
sense  of  the  word,  I  am  supposed  to  have  the  right  to  use 
it,  sell  it,  or  give  it  away  during  my  lifetime,  and  at  my 
death  to  transfer  it  by  bequest  to  my  successor,  thus  ex- 
tending my  right  absolutely  to  him,  and  giving  him  the 
power  to  extend  it  to  his  successor,  so  that,  so  far  as  other 
men  not  in  this  line  of  succession  are  concerned,  the 
original  possessor's  right  becomes  a  perpetuity,  just  as  if 
he  had  continued  to  live  on  through  succeeding  genera- 
tions, instead  of  dying  and  continuing  his  rights  in  the 
person  of  his  heir.  The  essence  of  absolute  ownership  is 
perpetuity ;  the  theory,  if  there  be  any  real  theory  con- 
nected with  this  subversion  of  human  rights,  being  that 
when  a  man  acquires  earthly  possessions,  they  are  his  or 
his  successor's  (which  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  so  far 
as  the  rights  of  other  men  are  concerned)  for  all  succeed- 
ing time,  so  long  as  men  shall  inhabit  the  earth. 

The  writers  whose  names  are  mentioned  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter  believe  that  a  man  can  thus  rightfully  own 
what  are  known  as  improvements  and  personal  property, 
but  that  he  cannot  own  land,  if  justice  be  maintained. 


KING   MAMMON.  157 

Before  we  consider  these  points,  let  us  again  get  away 
from  the  earth,  out  among  the  clouds,  where  we  can  look 
back  upon  its  surface  from  a  distance  and  note  the  con- 
ditions at  one  comprehensive  view,  without  being  con- 
fused by  a  multitude  of  details. 

What  is  the  earth  ?  It  is  apparently  a  huge  ball  nearly 
eight  thousand  miles  in  diameter,  the  surface  composed 
partly  of  land  and  partly  of  water,  and  enveloped  by  the 
gas  we  call  the  atmosphere.  On  and  in  its  crust  we  may 
find  thousands  of  different  substances,  composed  in  vary- 
ing proportions  and  combinations  of  a  few  elementary 
forms  of  matter  of  which  one  of  the  most  common  is  the 
metal  called  iron.  The  mineral  termed  water  is  separable 
into  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  and  these  united  again  in  the 
right  proportions  will  make  water.  Water  cooled  becomes 
ice ;  heated  it  becomes  steam  and  apparently  vanishes 
into  nothing.  So  with  iron  ;  a  solid  at  ordinary  temper- 
atures, it  reddens  by  heat,  becomes  a  liquid,  finally  vapor- 
izes and  seemingly  disappears.  All  nature,  composed  of 
varying  elements,  exists  in  these  three  forms,  or  would  so 
exist  under  certain  physical  conditions,  for  air  becomes 
a  liquid  and  a  solid  under  extreme  cold  and  pressure.  On 
the  earth  appear  various  forms  of  life,  plants  and  animals, 
of  whom  man  has  reached  the  highest  development,  as 
we  understand  that  term.  Their  bodies  are  composed  of 
the  same  elements  that  exist  in  the  globe  on  which  they 
live.  "Dust  thou  art,  to  dust  returnest,"  is  literally  true 
of  all  life,  when  dust  means  the  substances  of  which  the 
planet  is  composed. 

All  life  buds,  grows,  ages,  decays,  and  dies  with  much 
of  similarity  and  connection  all  along  the  line,  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest.  Note,  however,  that  in  all  the 
transformations  of  animate  and  inanimate  nature  that 
involve  the  countless  and  often  mysterious  changes  going 
on  in  this  world,  not  one  atom  is  taken  away  from  the 


1 58  KING   MAMMON. 

planet  and  not  one  atom  added  to  its  mass.  When  ice 
becomes  water  and  water  steam,  and  steam  becomes 
separated  into  its  constituent  elements,  the  world  has  lost 
nothing  and  gained  nothing.  After  all  the  incomprehen- 
sibly numerous  mechanical  and  chemical  changes  that  have 
been  wrought  by  nature  and  by  art  on  the  surface  of  the 
planet  in  the  last  ten  thousand  years,  it  is  incontestable  and 
unthinkable  that  its  weight  can  be  either  increased  or  di- 
minished one  grain  from  these  causes.  So  of  the  forces  of 
heat,  light,  and  electricity  ;  they  are  convertible  one  into 
the  other,  and  the  absolute  amount  of  energy  of  each  or 
all  (if  there  be  more  than  one  force,  in  reality,  assuming 
different  forms)  can  never  be  lessened  or  increased.  So 
far  as  man  is  concerned,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  the 
creation  or  the  destruction  of  either  matter  or  force. 
There  never  was  a  truer  thought  than  the  assertion  that 
man  brings  nothing  into  the  world  and  can  take  nothing 
away. 

The  same  conditions  are  probably  true  of  life.  The 
strange  principle  of  organized  growth  and  development, 
which  appears  nearly  as  mysterious  in  a  plant  as  in  a 
human  being,  may  be,  and  in  all  probability  is,  an  emana- 
tion of  some  great  life-reservoir  existing  in  the  universe, 
(just  as  the  lamp  before  me  is  throwing  off  and  making 
perceptible  for  a  moment  a  small  portion  of  the  universal 
store  of  heat  and  light,)  neither  increasing  by  its  existence 
the  absolute  quantity  of  what  we  name  life,  nor  lessening 
it  by  what  we  call  death.  Discarding  this  speculation  at 
present  as  useless,  however,  we  can  be  absolutely  cer- 
tain that  all  of  man's  efforts  on  earth  accomplish  neither 
creation  nor  destruction,  but  merely  transformation. 

What,  then,  is  production,  for  which  so  much  has  been 
claimed  as  a  foundation  for  man's  rights  ?  It  is  merely 
this  much  :  man  appears  on  earth  for  a  few  years,  incon- 
ceivably brief  compared  with  its  habitable  existence,  hav- 


KING   MAMMON.  159 

ing  no  power  whatever  over  his  coming  or  his  going. 
Relatively  he  is  the  insect  of  a  day.  Forced  thus  upon 
the  planet,  and  protected  during  a  helpless  period  by  the 
instincts  of  his  predecessors,  he  proceeds,  when  he  arrives 
at  the  age  of  able  effort,  to  make  himself  as  comfortable, 
morally,  mentally,  and  physically,  as  the  circumstances 
will  permit  during  his  brief  occupation  of  earth.  In 
carrying  forward  these  self-protective  efforts,  he  neces- 
sarily applies  his  labor  to  various  portions,  relatively 
minute,  of  the  planet  on  which  he  exists,  and  thus  effects 
slight  transformations,  which  are  termed  the  products  of 
his  labor.  Nothing  whatever  that  he  is  said  to  produce 
is  really  more  than  some  small  fragment  of  the  world 
surrounding  him,  modified  in  some  way  by  his  exertions 
to  adapt  it  to  his  desires. 

Thus,  if  one  man  clears  a  small  spot  of  ground  and 
plants  therein  a  garden  ;  if  another  fells  trees,  cuts  logs 
and  with  them  builds  a  house  ;  if  a  third  digs  copper  or 
iron  to  make  a  weapon,  or  laboriously  finishes  a  bow  and 
arrows,  each  has  merely  transformed  a  small  part  of  the 
earth  surrounding  him  to  suit  his  needs,  and  there  is  no 
real  difference  in  the  nature  of  their  labor  or  in  the  rewards 
which  justice  will  attach  to  it.  The  trees  which  the  man 
felled  to  make  his  house  are  quite  as  much  a  part  of  the 
earth  as  the  soil  is  which  the  man  cleared  and  stirred  when 
he  made  his  garden  ;  and  the  copper  used  by  the  third 
man  in  making  his  weapon  is  surely  as  much  a  constitu- 
ent of  the  planet  as  any  so  called  "land  "  that  has  vexed 
and  puzzled  the  minds  of  these  philosophers  for  a  century. 
So  far  as  natural  rights  are  concerned,  it  is  quite  certain 
that  in  the  supposed  case  here  described,  any  reader  or 
any  number  of  readers  will  at  once  concede  that  the  man 
who  has  occupied  his  bit  of  land  and  made  his  garden  has 
quite  as  perfect  a  right  to  undisturbed  use  and  exclusive 
possession  as  do  the  men  who  have  made  houses  and 


l6o  KING   MAMMON. 

weapons.  The  application  of  labor  in  any  one  or  all  of 
these  instances  has  conferred  upon  the  laborer  all  the  rights 
which  can  justly  accrue  to  him  on  account  of  his  exer- 
tions, and,  so  far  as  rights  are  concerned,  the  men  are  not 
differently  situated  because  one  took  land  and  the  others 
something  else. 

The  essential  truth  embodied  in  the  condition  of  man's 
existence  is  that  everything  he  possesses  is  a  part  of  the 
earth  and  indestructible,  so  that  in  its  real  nature  nothing 
differs  from  land,  so  far  as  human  rights  are  concerned. 
Labor  cannot  exist  alone,  but  must  be  applied  to  some 
definite  portion  of  the  earth's  mass,  for  even  our  own 
bodies  are  composed  of  the  earth.  Thus  a  wooden  house 
is  merely  earth  transformed  into  trees  by  nature  and  into 
boards  by  man.  A  brick  or  stone  building  is  only  a  por- 
tion of  earth-crust  moulded  or  carved  into  a  form  suitable 
for  man's  needs.  Air  and  water  are  quite  as  much  a  part 
of  earth,  as  land,  trees,  and  men.  The  most  complicated 
piece  of  machinery  ever  constructed  is  merely  parts  of 
earth,  in  the  form  of  metals  usually,  shaped  with  infinite 
toil  to  accomplish  man's  purpose,  just  as  his  farm  is 
another  portion  of  the  globe  modified  by  clearing,  and 
digging,  and  fertilizing  to  gratify  his  desires  in  another 
way.  A  gold  coin  is  a  small  fragment  of  the  same  earth 
modified  by  changes  in  its  form  and  substance  to  suit 
his  convenience.  Trace  anything — silks  and  satins,  dia- 
monds and  pearls,  the  object-glass  of  the  Lick  telescope, 
or  the  rarest  violin  of  Cremona's  workshops — back  to  its 
origin,  and  you  will  find  nothing  but  a  transformation  in 
what  is  essentially  land  in  all  its  real  characteristics. 
Nothing  whatever  is  produced  that  is  not  some  part  of  the 
earth's  crust  or  atmosphere  adapted  by  man  to  suit  his 
needs  or  his  pleasure,  in  the  same  way  that  he  transforms 
by  patient  efforts  the  bit  of  earth  which  he  calls  his  lot  or 
his  farm.  Sometimes  the  apparent  value  of  the  labor  in 


KING   MAMMON.  l6l 

the  transformation  exceeds  the  apparent  value  of  the 
earth  in  the  product,  as  in  the  machine ;  sometimes  the 
value  of  the  earth  in  the  product  exceeds  that  of  the  labor 
immediately  involved,  as  in  the  coin  ;  but  in  neither  case 
is  the  nature  of  man's  relations  to  earth  or  his  rights 
therein  changed,  for  labor  expended  on  one  part  of  earth 
is  entitled  to  its  reward  quite  as  much  as  labor  bestowed 
upon  another  portion,  and  many  bits  of  land  exist  upon 
which  the  cost  of  labor  expended  by  its  present  owners 
far  exceeds  the  real  value. 

If  it  be  not  already  sufficiently  clear  that  a  fallacy  exists 
in  the  assumption  that  a  more  exclusive  right  exists  in  the 
tenure  of  a  house  than  in  the  possession  of  a  farm,  we 
will  again  suppose  a  case  of  human  effort. 

The  inhabitants  of  Mexico  and  those  of  California  dur- 
ing its  history  preceding  the  annexation  to  the  United 
States,  built  their  houses  of  large  sun-dried  bricks,  bulky 
and  fragile,  which  they  called  adobes.  In  an  imaginary 
world  peopled  by  ten  of  these  Mexicans,  five  men  select 
spots  of  ground  and  each  sets  to  work  to  clear  his  land, 
planting  therein,  according  to  the  customs  of  their  fore- 
fathers, a  crop  of  beans  and  red  peppers.  The  other  five, 
somewhat  emulous  of  Joaquin  Murietta,  live  in  caves,  and 
pursue  a  life  free  from  systematic  toil.  According  to  our 
philosophical  writers,  there  can  be  no  special  or  exclusive 
rights  to  land,  so  the  five  bandits  maintain  their  equal 
rights  by  traversing  the  gardens  of  their  associates  at  their 
own  sweet  wills,  undismayed  by  the  protests  of  the  oc- 
cupants. Finally,  the  beans  and  peppers  being  safely 
harvested  and  winter  approaching,  the  Mexican  farmers 
decide  to  build  houses  after  the  fashion  of  their  race. 
Accordingly,  each  procures  water,  mixes  the  dirt  in  his 
garden,  from  which  he  had  lately  removed  the  bean-vines, 
and  proceeds  to  mould  it  into  bricks,  dry  them  in  the  sun, 

lay  them  upon  one   another,  and  thus  construct  a  house. 
ii 


l62  KING   MAMMON. 

When  the  houses  are  completed,  every  Mexican  has 
gained  a  special  and  exclusive  right,  according  to  the  land 
theorists,  by  which  he  can  now  exclude  the  Joaquins 
from  the  land  built  into  its  walls  by  the  process  of  mixing 
and  moulding,  though  all  his  former  mixing  and  mould- 
ing when  the  same  land  lay  in  the  form  of  a  little  farm 
could  avail  him  nothing  nor  justly  bar  out  trespassers. 
A  sudden  change  takes  place,  however,  for  before  the 
builders  can  occupy  their  houses,  an  earthquake  throws 
all  the  walls  down  again,  a  violent  storm  of  rain  dissolves 
the  imperfectly  hardened  adobes,  and,  presto,  change  ! 
away  vanish  the  magic  special-rights  to  the  mystical  Mex- 
ican mud,  and  back  again  justly  come  the  disciples  of  the 
famous  Mexican  bandit  to  maintain  their  equal-rights,  in 
a  manner  that  is  nearly  as  confusing  as  some  of  the  argu- 
ments on  the  land  question  which  have  been  quoted,  and 
about  as  consistent  as  the  present  attitude  of  Herbert 
Spencer  and  Henry  George  toward  each  other. 

Is  it  not  manifestly  absurd  from  these  comparisons  to 
suppose,  as  so  many  writers  have  done,  that  man's  rights 
.  in  the  possession  of  land  are  any  different  from  his  rights  in 
anything  else  that  he  develops  or  transforms  by  his  labor? 
Is  it  not  evident  that  when  he  clears  or  cultivates  a  bit 
of  land,  the  application  of  his  labor  is  exactly  the  same 
ethical  process  involved  in  building  a  house  or  making 
a  tool?  Reduced  to  its  final  analysis,  any  of  these  acts 
is  merely  the  transformation  of  a  small  part  of  earth  by 
man's  labor  to  adapt  it  to  his  purposes.  If  he  has  any 
right  to  one,  he  has  the  same  right  to  all,  because  they 
are  identical  in  their  nature.  It  is  true  that  man  has  only 
an  equal  right  in  the  unimproved  land,  or  land  to  which 
his  labor  has  not  been  applied,  but  it  is  also  true  that  he 
has  only  an  equal  right  in  the  material  of  which  the  tool 
and  the  house  are  constructed  until  he  has  labored  upon 
them,  all  instances  merely  being  illustrations  of  the  gen- 


KING   MAMMON.  163 

eral  truth,  that  man  has  originally  no  special  right  to  any 
part  of  the  earth,  any  more  than  he  has  to  the  air,  to  the 
light  of  the  sun,  to  the  ocean,  or  to  the  forces  of  gravita- 
tion and  electricity. 

If,  therefore,  man's  rights  to  houses,  tools,  money,  and 
all  other  forms  of  wealth,  including  land,  are  exactly  iden- 
tical, what  follows  ?^A11  must  be  justly  susceptible  of 
private  ownership  in  the  complete  sense  of  the  term,  or 
all  must  be  as  the  writers  herein  quoted  conceive  land  to 
be  ;  that  is,  absolutely  incapable  of  being  owned  as  prop- 
erty in  the  full  meaning  of  that  word.  It  will  be  observed 
that  land  and  all  other  things  that  men  find  of  use  to  them 
are  here  classed  as  wealth,  instead  of  separating  the  earth 
into  the  absurd  classes  of  land  and  wealth  according  to 
the  habit  of  the  political  economists,  who  have  continually 
dwelt  on  the  fallacy  that  there  is  a  real  distinction 
between  earth  lying  flat,  as  in  a  field,  and  earth  trans- 
formed into  a  tree  and  the  tree  into  a  house.  The  only 
consistent  thought  is  that  the  earth  is  man's  home,  and 
all  of  it,  from  the  centre  to  the  limits  of  the  atmosphere, 
including  the  light  and  heat  that  fall  upon  it  from  the 
other  heavenly  bodies,  constitute  man's  wealth.  Mon- 
opoly of  one  portion  is  quite  as  wrong  as  monopoly  of 
another  portion,  and  the  land  nationalists  and  single-tax 
advocates  are  only  attacking  a  single  manifestation  of 
injustice  because  it  is  more  prominent  than  other  forms. 
It  is  quite  true,  as  the  writers  on  the  land  question  have 
asserted,  that  land  cannot  justly  be  held  as  private  prop- 
erty, but  it  is  also  quite  true  that  absolutely  nothing  else 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  can  be  owned  justly  as  property 
in  the  complete  sense  of  perpetuity. 

The  reason  why  such  ownership  cannot  exist  is  that 
all  of  man's  rights,  equal  or  unequal,  real  or  imaginary, 
arise  from  the  possession  of  his  own  body  ;  for  without 
that  he  is  nothing  so  far  as  earthly  life  is  concerned. 


164  KING   MAMMON. 

Therefore,  as  he  cannot  have  either  property  in  or  pos- 
session of  his  own  body  beyond  the  brief  period  of  his 
existence,  so  he  cannot  justly  claim  any  right  whatever 
to  any  control  or  direction  of  any  part  of  earth  after  or  at 
the  termination  of  his  existence.  There  can  be  no  actual 
property  without  the  element  of  perpetuity,  and  as  man 
has  not  a  perpetual  lease  of  life,  so  he  can  have  no  per- 
petual lease  of  wealth,  e;ther  in  his  own  name  or  in  the 
names  of  successors  appointed  by  himself. 

So  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned,  whether  it  be  the 
beggar  who  stood  at  the  gate  of  Dives,  or  Caesar  conquer- 
ing the  known  world,  he  can  absolutely  own  neither  the 
pin  with  which  he  binds  his  rags  into  the  semblance  of 
a  garment,  nor  the  vast  region  over  which  he  holds 
despotic  sway.  Matter  is  indestructible.  It  can  neither 
be  increased  nor  lessened  by  the  hand  of  man.  We  poor, 
struggling  mites  upon  the  small  fragment  of  the  universe 
that  we  name  earth,  appear  on  its  surface  for  an  hour, 
a  day,  a  year,  or  at  most  a  century  of  the  illimitable 
eternity  extending  on  each  side  of  our  brief  existence  ; 
we  devote  our  puny  efforts  to  effecting  some  trivial 
changes  in  the  form  and  nature  of  certain  minute  portions 
of  the  infinity  of  matter  extending  in  all  directions 
beyond  our  vision  and  beyond  our  comprehension  ;  we 
live  out  our  ephemeral  existence,  too  frequently,  with 
our  thoughts  centered  in  ourselves,  as  though  we  were 
God's  universe  ;  and  finally  we  die  and  our  bodies  return 
to  the  earth  whence  they  proceeded  :  but  during  all  our 
residence  here,  and  notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  and 
triumphs  that  gratify  our  silly  vanity,  we  bring  absolutely 
nothing  into  the  world  and  we  take  absolutely  nothing 
away. 

What  astounding  supremacy  of  egotism,  then,  for  any 
man  to  contend  that  he  perpetually  owns  any  part  of 
the  world  in  which  he  is  placed  merely  as  one  among 


KING  MAMMON.  165 

millions  of  predecessors  and  millions  of  followers  !  What 
absurdity  of  self-deification  for  him  to  assert  his  right 
to  establish  a  perpetual  claim  to  the  earth  by  attempting 
to  bequeath  any  portion  of  it  to  any  survivor,  no  matter 
if  the  labor  of  his  insignificant  and  ephemeral  existence, 
which  was  a  necessity  to  his  own  life  and  comfort,  has 
been  applied  to  some  small  fragment  of  the  planet  over 
which  he  would  establish  the  petty  tyranny  of  his 
absolute  control  ! 

Do  other  men  who  follow  us  have  no  rights  in  the 
natural  fragments  and  the  modified  fragments  of  the 
planet  which  all  men  inhabit,  and  which  we  are  com- 
pelled to  leave  behind  us  at  the  stern  command  of  Death  ? 
When  man  is  thus  a  slave  to  Nature  and  dies  obediently 
at  her  command,  does  he  possess  any  right  born  of  a 
motive  higher  than  the  egotism  of  supreme  selfishness 
to  dictate  the  disposition  of  any  part  of  earth  beyond 
his  life  and  occupancy  ?  Did  other  men  who  preceded 
him  as  sojourners  on  earth  have  the  right  to  declare 
before  they  left  it  what  parts  of  it  in  land  and  other 
wealth  he  should  not  use,  and  to  limit  his  freedom  by 
imposing  restrictions  from  their  own  brief  existence,  no 
better  and  no  greater  than  his  own  ?  Can  men  perpet- 
uate their  rights  to  any  part  of  earth  when  they  cannot 
perpetuate  their  own  bodies  or  their  own  existence  ? 

I  think  we  must  say  no  if  we  would  speak  truth. 
The  philosophical  writings  of  Locke,  Mill,  Spencer,  and 
George,  with  the  scores  of  commentators  they  have 
evolved,  have  revealed  but  a  portion  of  the  truth.  They 
have  halted  at  the  private  ownership  of  land  and  have 
denounced  it  as  an  evil  without  perceiving  that  land- 
ownership  is  only  the  most  noticeable  form  of  the  great 
monopoly  of  the  earth  involved  in  the  power  of  mak- 
ing bequests  or  other  privilege  of  individual  succession. 
They  have  failed  to  inquire  what  is  the  cause  of  land- 


166  KING  MAMMON. 

ownership,  and  they  have  failed  to  observe  that  no  com- 
plete ownership  of  land  ever  existed  till  the  privilege 
of  bequeathing  it  to  a  successor  was  acquired  and  ex- 
ercised. They  have  ignored  the  fact  that  a  perpetuity 
of  existence  is  a  necessary  element  in  a  perpetual 
right,  and  so  they  have  fallen  into  endless  discussions 
over  the  titles  to  land  and  the  taxation  and  compen- 
sation of  owners,  under  the  false  assumption  that  land 
rights  are  different  from  other  rights  of  possession  and 
use.  Our  philosophers  should  postpone  their  debate 
until  they  depart  from  earth  and  unite  in  the  eternal  ex- 
istence of  the  future  that  is  supposed  to  lie  beyond  death. 
Earth  is  surely  not  the  place  for  everlasting  private 
ownership  by  the  power  of  substitution,  but  we  are 
taught  that  in  the  world  to  come,  after  the  brief  probation 
of  earthly  existence  is  terminated,  there  will  be  an 
eternity  of  joy  or  misery.  To  the  political  and  social 
institutions  of  that  world,  then,  let  us  relegate  the  doc- 
trines of  perpetuity,  for  when  life-use  becomes  an  eternal 
use,  perhaps  the  exclusive  and  everlasting  control  by  a 
favored  few  of  those  things  necessary  to  our  comfort  or 
happiness  may  not  become  the  same  injustice  there  that 
it  is  on  earth.  One  philosopher  of  the  future  existence 
may  achieve  an  eternal  possession  of  a  furnace  within 
the  realms  of  his  Satanic  majesty,  and  another  by  a 
more  satisfactory  earthly  record  may  accomplish  the  per- 
petual control  of  a  golden  harp.  The  impulses  they  have 
given  to  the  progress  of  humanity  by  their  daring  and 
vigorous  attacks  upon  the  greatest  social  wrongs, 
certainly  entitle  them  to  a  perpetuity  of  comfort  in  that 
world  if  they  will  abandon  their  somewhat  unreasonable 
claims  to  a  perpetuity  of  possession  here. 

Man's  real  rights  in  the  earth,  then,  in  spite  of  the  phi- 
losophers and  of  merely  human  laws,  are  a  usufruct.  He 
is  a  tenant  of  earth  holding  possession  under  a  life-lease 


KING  MAMMON.  l6/ 

which  he  must  relinquish  immediately  and  absolutely 
when  he  is  summoned  by  the  Angel  of  Death.  His  right 
is  the  right  of  use.  He  has  an  equal  right  with  every 
other  man  to  use  any  part  of  the  earth  to  which  the  labor 
or  use  of  no  other  existing  man  is  applied,  and  he  has  a 
better  right  than  any  other  man  or  all  men  to  the  use  of 
such  portions  of  the  earth  as  he  has  transformed  by  his 
own  efforts  to  accomplish  his  desires  ;  but  he  has  no  per- 
petual right  in  anything,  for  his  right  to  use  the  earth 
expires  with  his  own  life,  and  he  cannot  justly  name  his 
successor  in  the  life-lease,  nor  delegate  his  expiring 
rights  to  another,  any  more  than  other  tenants  whose 
terms  of  occupancy  are  drawing  to  a  close.  He  cannot 
transmit  his  right  of  use  under  the  expectancy  of  death, 
because  the  right  of  using  and  the  power  of  using  are 
both  extinguished  with  his  life,  and  a  new  tenant  must 
make  new  terms  with  the  owner. 

That  owner  at  any  given  instant  is  the  entire  popula- 
tion inhabiting  any  portion  of  the  earth  and  associated 
under  some  form  of  government  as  a  nation.  In  a  more 
general  sense,  and  in  the  most  perfect  significance,  the 
owner  is  the  entire  number  of  people  who  inhabit  that 
portion  of  the  earth  from  the  time  when  King  Might  first 
concedes  a  few  privileges  to  Queen  Right,  on  through  the 
ages  of  its  history,  in  the  development  and  progress,  per- 
haps, of  many  nations,  to  the  time  when  human  existence 
on  the  planet  shall  become  extinct.  Man  as  an  individ- 
ual has  but  a  temporary  existence,  and  the  rights  of  indi- 
vidual man  must,  therefore,  also  be  temporary.  It  is  abso- 
lutely impossible  to  effect  justice  in  any  other  way,  for  no 
governmental  plan  that  does  not  recognize  these  facts  is 
based  upon  the  actual  condition  and  progress  of  human 
life.  Man,  the  individual,  may  equitably  exchange  his 
life  lease  for  the  lease  of  another  during  its  existence  ;  but 
when  that  lease  is  about  to  expire,  and  when  conscious- 


1 68  KING  MAMMON. 

ness  of  that  fact  impels  him  to  an  attempt  to  select  the 
next  occupant,  or  if  he  and  a  proposed  successor  conspire 
to  defraud  society  of  its  rights  by  attempted  evasions  of 
these  cardinal  principles  of  right  and  wrong,  the  survivor 
who  thus  attempts  to  reap  what  he  has  not  sown,  by  be- 
coming a  monopolist  of  earth  and  usurping  the  rights  of 
his  fellow-creatures,  should  be  held  accountable  to  society 
for  his  crime  like  any  other  criminal. 

The  land  question,  which  now  has  so  many  enthusias- 
tic students  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  which  is  a  burning 
issue  in  England,  and  which  has  already  been  vigorously, 
though  I  believe  unfairly,  attacked  in  New  Zealand, 
where  some  of  the  most  radical  ideas  of  recent  years 
have  been  pushed  to  the  front,  is  merely  a  portion  of  the 
great  problem  of  human  rights,  and  it  cannot  be  solved 
justly  or  effectively  by  the  methods  that  have  been  advo- 
cated. It  is  folly  to  assert,  as  the  single-tax  men  do,  that 
men  who  have  monopolized  certain  highly  useful  portions 
of  the  earth,  in  the  form  of  buildings,  machinery,  clothing, 
and  food  shall  pay  no  taxes  upon  their  possessions  to 
assist  in  defraying  the  common  expenses  of  association 
and  organized  protection,  while  other  men  who  happen 
to  have  monopolized  another  part  of  earth  called  land,  or 
who  may  have  even  applied  their  labor  to  it,  and  thus 
fitted  it  for  the  uses  of  humanity  quite  as  honestly  and 
effectively  as  any  man  ever  "produced"  anything  on 
earth,  must  lose  the  value  of  what  they  justly  possess  by 
the  short-sighted  methods  of  the  land  hobbyists. 

The  land  agitators  are  right  in  denouncing  the  evils  of 
property  in  land.  They  believe  that  no  community  can 
justly  confer  land  upon  an  individual  as  property  ;  for  as 
a  country  increases  in  population,  the  land  becomes  sub- 
ject to  the  control  of  a  few,  and  the  many  are  debarred  from 
using  it  in  productive  efforts  except  by  paying  rents  and 
thus  maintaining  an  idle  class  of  non-producers  as  land- 


KING  MAMMON.  169 

lords.  They  believe  that  the  individual,  who  can  neces- 
sarily live  but  the  few  years  of  an  ordinary  lifetime,  can 
never  justly  become  more  than  a  tenant  of  the  land  he 
occupies,  and  that  the  real  owner  must  be  the  community 
of  which  he  forms  a  part.  Thus  the  individuals  of  the 
community  come  and  go  by  birth  and  death,  but  the 
community  itself  never  dies  so  long  as  earth  remains 
habitable. 

The  land  reformers  are  right  in  these  conclusions.  No 
man  and  no  body  of  men  at  any  period  or  any  instant  in 
the  history  of  a  nation  can  justly  own  its  land.  The  land 
is  not  even  absolutely  owned  by  all  the  people  who  inhabit 
the  country  at  any  specified  time  ;  they  are  individually 
life-tenants,  and  their  aggregate  rights  are  never  greater 
than  mere  tenancy.  If,  therefore,  they  would  do  justice 
one  to  another  and  to  their  posterity,  they  must  accept 
this  view  of  life  and  its  rights  and  duties.  There  can  be 
no  such  thing  as  ownership  of  land  except  by  the  entire 
body  of  people  who  will  have  inhabited  the  planet  from 
the  beginning  of  human  life  till  its  final  extinction.  We 
may  say,  if  we  are  devout,  that  God  owns  the  earth,  and 
that  man,  the  individual,  is  His  tenant,  rather  than  the 
tenant  of  the  entire  human  race  ;  but  this  conclusion  will 
not  alter  the  essential  thought  that  we  are  individually 
tenants  and  not  owners,  and  that  the  results  of  our  efforts 
are  mere  possession  and  not  property.  Any  system  of  gov- 
ernment which  ignores  these  facts  will  develop  injustice 
and  tyranny  in  its  institutions  as  surely  as  night  follows 
day,  for  every  new  generation  feels  the  wrongs  of  inherited 
monopoly  more  bitterly,  till  finally  the  social  structure 
breaks  into  pieces  under  the  strain  of  unnatural  conditions. 

Whenever  man  regards  earth  solely  as  his  habitation  ; 
whenever  he  formulates  laws  merely  for  his  own  brief  ex- 
istence, regardless  of  those  who  succeed  him  ;  whenever 
he  forgets  that  his  life  is  but  a  span,  and  that  other  men 


I/O  KING  MAMMON. 

— his  children  and  the  children  of  his  neighbors — will 
immediately  follow  in  his  footsteps ;  whenever  his  thoughts 
are  entirely  bound  up  in  his  own  little  selfish  existence, 
disregarding  the  life  that  is  to  succeed  his  own,  and  car- 
ing not  whether  he  leaves  equitable  conditions  for  the 
survivors,  just  so  surely  will  he  leave  to  his  heirs  not  alone 
a  heritage  of  wealth,  but  also  one  of  danger,  in  which  the 
bitter  curses  of  outraged  humanity  fall  upon  the  corrup- 
tion and  injustice  by  which  misery  and  destitution  are 
brought  face  to  face  with  idleness  and  luxury  under  con- 
ditions which  are  a  mockery  to  any  just  distribution  of 
rewards  and  punishments.  The  rich  man  eventually  be- 
comes rich  because  his  father  was  wealthy  ;  the  poor  man 
remains  poor  because  he  is  one  of  the  "  lower  classes" 
and  cannot  rise  when  social  conditions  become  petrified. 
Any  man  who  regards  either  the  entire  earth  or  his 
country  as  property  owned  by  the  people  who  inhabit  it 
at  any  given  instant,  and  who  believes  that  the  land  he 
may  possess  is  his  property  forever,  to  be  controlled  arbi- 
trarily by  himself  and  his  successors  nominated  by  be- 
quests, is  preparing  to  lay  the  foundations  of  injustice  that 
will  in  after  years  bring  misery  and  want  to  somebody's 
children,  and  perhaps  to  his  own.  Whenever  the  control 
of  land  is  perpetuated  in  families  by  the  customs  of  inheri- 
tance it  develops  into  a  monopoly  more  grinding  and 
exasperating  than  all  other  monopolies  which  have  cursed 
human  existence.  When  we  apportion  the  land  of  any 
country  under  private  ownership,  transmit  it  by  inheri- 
tance, and  permit  new  men  to  be  born  without  inheri- 
tance, there  is  immediately  created  a  progressive  evil  by 
which  are  developed  a  race  of  monopolistic  landowners 
and  a  race  of  serfs.  There  will  be  little  justice  in  politi- 
cal methods  until  men  learn  to  consider  the  rights  of  those 
who  are  to  succeed  them  as  earthly  tenants,  and  until 
they  learn  to  control  to  a  certain  extent  their  selfish,  short- 


KING   MAMMON.  I/I 

sighted  desires  for  absolute  dictation  on  their  deathbeds 
of  what  they  are  pleased  to  term  their  own.  Every  man, 
presumably,  loves  his  children  and  would  leave  them  a 
heritage.  The  weakness  of  this  position,  however,  lies 
in  the  fact  that  men  usually  labor  merely  to  leave  a  heri- 
tage of  wealth,  and  not  a  heritage  of  safe  government 
under  just  conditions  and  equal  opportunities.  When 
wealth  takes  wings,  and  heirs  are  reduced  to  penury,  they 
will  be  compelled  to  struggle  against  the  unfair  conditions 
that  oppress  every  poor  man  to-day,  while  under  a  better 
social  system,  comparative  poverty  would  be  but  a  slight 
drawback,  since  reasonable  effort  would  bring  comfort  to 
any  man.  Just  laws  and  a  safe  government  are  more 
likely  to  confer  happiness  upon  posterity  than  great  in- 
dividual wealth  by  inheritance,  which  can  only  exist  in 
the  midst  of  injustice. 

What  is  the  real  nature  or  essence  of  private  owner- 
ship in  land?  If  a  community  occupying  a  body  of  land 
in  which  all  its  members  are  supposed  to  have  equal 
rights,  allots  the  territory  equally,  or  at  least  fairly  and 
acceptably  among  its  members,  and  thereafter  accords  to 
each  a  better  right  in  his  allotted  portion  than  any  other 
man  or  all  the  others  can  have  to  that  part,  the  plan  em- 
bodies no  injustice  among  the  original  body  of  men. 
Ethically  it  is  not  different  from  the  satisfactory  and 
equitable  division  of  game  killed  in  the  chase  by  common 
effort.  Practically  such  a  division  may  be  the  most  con- 
venient and  satisfactory  as  well  as  profitable  means  of  using 
the  land.  The  mere  division  of  the  land  into  small  por- 
tions under  separate  management  does  not  effect  the  real 
wrong  of  private  ownership  or  property,  for  the  original 
members  of  the  community  retain  their  rights  as  well 
under  a  division  as  when  the  land  is  held  in  a  common 
tract,  according  to  the  methods  of  the  Indian  tribes. 

The   real   trouble   begins   when   new   men    are   born, 


172  KING  MAMMON. 

for  when  all  the  land  is  allotted  the  immigrants  by  birth 
have  no  opportunities,  except  those  of  mere  chanty  and 
sufferance  till  some  ancestor  dies.  If  every  man's  oppor- 
tunities were  equitably  affected  by  the  departure  of  pre- 
decessors to  the  land  of  shadows,  there  would  still  be 
little  real  hardship,  for  deaths  as  well  as  births  are  con- 
tinually occurring.  But  the  system  of  successions  now 
steps  in  and  confers  upon  a  favorite  in  the  rising  gener- 
ation all  the  wealth,  be  it  ever  so  great,  of  the  progenitor 
in  the  departing  generation,  and  thus  injustice  is  effected 
and  class  conditions  instituted  and  fostered  by  an  absurd 
idea  of  wealth  transmission.  No  such  thing  as  the  private 
ownership  of  land  ever  existed  till  the  privilege  of  bequeath- 
ing it  was  accorded,  and  when  that  privilege  shall  be  taken 
away,  absolute  ownership  will  go  with  it  and  men  will 
be  reduced  to  their  natural  and  rightful  position  of  life- 
tenants.  Property  does  -not  really  exist  till  the  idea  of 
perpetual  ownership  by  means  of  a  successor  is  em- 
bodied in  the  privilege  of  making  a  will,  which  is  equiva- 
lent to  declaring,  "This  wealth  is  mine  forever,  no  matter 
whether  I  am  in  the  world  or  out  of  it."  The  instant  a 
man  has  no  power  to  name  his  successor,  when  death 
approaches,  that  instant  he  becomes  again  the  life-tenant 
of  land  held  by  the  community,  which  says  to  him  : 
"You  may  use  this  land  during  the  period  of  your  exist- 
ence according  to  the  rules  we  shall  adopt  in  the  form  of 
law,  but  your  tenure  is  merely  a  life  lease.  Whenever 
you  die,  your  rights  in  it  and  the  privileges  we  have  ex- 
tended to  you  will  cease,  and  we  shall  then  make  new 
arrangements  concerning  its  occupancy.  You  shall  not 
name  the  successor  in  its  occupancy,  for  he  is  our  ten- 
ant, not  yours." 

The  land  problem  is  merely  a  simple  and  noticeable 
form  of  the  greater  and  more  general  wealth  problem  or 
earth  problem,  involving  man's  relations  with  the  celes- 


KING  MAMMON.  173 

tial  body  he  inhabits,  just  as  the  circle,  with  its  compar- 
atively simple  relations  and  universal  occurrence,  becomes 
the  first  of  the  conic  sections  to  receive  mathematical 
investigation,  while  the  more  complex  curves  are  sub- 
jected to  a  later  inquiry.  As  the  circle  is  one  form  of  the 
ellipse,  and  as  the  square  is  one  form  of  the  parallelo- 
gram, so  is  the  right  to  land  only  one  form  of  the  univer- 
sal principle  which  must  ultimately  control  the  right  of 
men  to  use  and  enjoy  any  portion  whatever  of  the  earth. 
Humanity  will  discover  ere  many  years,  even  if  the 
truth  be  not  acknowledged  at  the  present  time,  that  the 
succession  of  the  king's  son  to  the  throne  of  his  ances- 
tors, a  principle  which  we  have  already  discarded  and 
denounced  as  a  tyrannical  absurdity  unworthy  of  main- 
tenance by  an  intelligent  and  liberty-loving  people,  is 
not  a  whit  more  absurd  or  more  tyrannical  than  the  prin- 
ciple that  is  still  maintained  by  which  the  son  succeeds 
(in  some  countries  with  his  father's  consent,  in  other 
countries  without  it)  to  the  land  or  other  wealth  pos- 
sessed by  his  progenitor.  Kingly  ascendency  is  a  power, 
and  wealth  is  a  power.  We  have  abolished  the  succes- 
sion so  far  as  the  kings  of  barbarism  are  concerned  ;  but 
we  have  retained  it  as  a  means  of  perpetuating  the  family 
power  of  financial  kings  developed  in  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Sooner  or  later  the  just  principle  must  be  recognized 
that  in  no  case,  political  or  financial,  can  the  dying  man 
delegate  his  powers  and  rights  to  a  successor.  Grover 
Cleveland  is  now  the  President  of  the  United  States,  hav- 
ing powers  that  are  delegated  to  him  by  the  people  of 
his  country.  By  virtue  of  those  powers  he  has  absolute 
control  of  the  White  House  as  a  financial  privilege,  and 
the  power  to  nullify  a  law  of  Congress  as  a  political  priv- 
ilege. If  Grover  Cleveland  should  die  before  the  expira- 
tion of  his  term  of  office,  and  on  his  deathbed  should  re- 


174  KING  MAMMON. 

quest  or  command  that  some  particular  individual  shall 
succeed  him  in  these  privileges,  would  there  not  arise  a 
howl  of  execration  from  the  throats  of  the  multitude  ? 

Yet  the  principle  by  which  the  President  is  not  per- 
mitted to  name  his  successor  is  not  different  in  its  nature 
but  only  in  its  extent  from  the  grander  principle  which 
extends  throughout  all  human  institutions,  by  which  is 
affirmed  the  absolute  right  of  the  living  to  control  what- 
ever portion  of  the  earth  they  inhabit,  free  from  the  de- 
crees of  dying  men,  and  free  from  the  unjust  transmission 
of  privileges  which  can  only  be  held  by  the  original 
possessor  for  a  limited  period,  terminated  either  by  the 
expiration  of  a  few  years,  or  by  the  duration,  at  most,  of 
his  own  existence. 

The  land  reformers  see  only  a  portion  of  the  evils 
which  confront  the  progress  of  society.  Land  monopoly 
is,  as  they  say,  a  thousand  times  more  oppressive 
than  all  the  modern  combinations  of  capital,  for  it  in- 
volves the  absolute  possession  and  exclusive  control  by 
individuals  of  all  those  desirable  spots  in  every  country 
which  become,  on  account  of  favorable  location,  the 
great  centers  of  trade  and  manufacture,  worth  thousands 
of  dollars  to  the  square  foot  of  surface,  and  more  valua- 
ble than  the  richest  gold  mines  for  revenue.  Land  does 
not  mean  merely  the  extensive  and  often  unprofitable 
tracts  far  from  great  centers  of  consumption,  but  also  the 
most  valuable  lots  in  the  hearts  of  the  great  cities.  How- 
ever persistent  the  land  reformers  may  have  been  in  their 
attacks  upon  this  evil,  and  however  great  the  good  they 
may  have  accomplished  in  stimulating  thought  upon 
these  important  questions,  they  have,  nevertheless,  failed 
to  observe  that  behind  the  land  tenures,  as  a  cause  for 
the  present  monopoly,  exists  the  universal  principle  of  a 
perpetual  ownership  through  the  power  of  successions. 
Private  ownership  of  lands  came  into  existence  as  an 


KING   MAMMON.  175 

effect  of  the  power  to  bequeath  a  possession  ;  let  the 
community  reclaim  its  land  by  abolishing  the  power  of 
the  individual  to  transfer  land  to  a  successor.  Guillotine 
Succession  and  thus  destroy  Private  Ownership.  When 
the  power  of  bequeathing  land  is  gone,  the  possessor  is 
transformed  from  an  owner  to  a  life-tenant,  and  the  land 
becomes  again  community  property.  The  private  owner- 
ship of  land,  like  the  monopolization  of  wealth  of  all  kinds, 
has  been  created  and  fostered  by  individual  inheritance, 
and  the  right  way  to  correct  the  evil  is  to  destroy  what 
causes  it  by  reversing  the  unjust  process  by  which  land 
monopoly  was  developed.  The  principles  of  succession 
embody  the  real  causes  of  the  evils  so  noticeable  in  the 
land  question,  and  no  satisfactory  conclusions  can  be 
evolved  from  its  consideration,  without  discussing  the 
rights  to  the  control  of  wealth  as  embodied  in  be- 
quests. A  remarkable  instance  of  the  inevitable  failure 
which  may  be  expected  from  attempts  to  solve  a  problem 
by  the  application  of  wrong  principles,  can  be  observed  in 
the  recent  writings  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  Henry  George, 
wherein  each  demolishes  a  portion  of  his  opponent's 
theories  without  being  able  to  convince  fair-minded 
readers  that  his  views  are  correct.  For  it  is  obviously 
neither  right  nor  safe  to  continue  the  system  of  land 
monopoly  that  exists  ;  it  is  equally  obvious  that  to  com- 
pensate existing  owners  would  really  only  transfer  their 
monopoly  to  something  else  deemed  valuable  by  men  ; 
r.nd  it  is  no  less  clear  that  land  nationalization  without 
compensation  or  the  single  land  tax  would  be  an  injus- 
tice to  all  landowners  not  inheriting  their  property,  and 
an  unjust  distinction  between  those  who  happened  to 
possess  land  and  those  who  controlled  some  other  form 
of  wealth.  Had  either  of  these  writers  gone  behind  the 
private  ownership  of  land,  concerning  which  so  much 
has  been  written,  he  could  not  have  failed  to  attack  the 


176  KING  MAMMON. 

basal  wrong  of  successions,  for  the  fallacy  which  perpet- 
ually afflicts  their  reasoning  is  the  assumption  that  land 
differs  radically  from  other  forms  of  earthly  possessions, 
and  that  everything  else  in  the  form  of  wealth  can  be 
justly  transmitted  as  a  perpetuity. 

Let  us,  then,  re-establish  the  principle  that  land  is  com- 
munity property  and  the  possessor  a  life-tenant  by  com- 
pelling the  reversion  to  the  public  of  all  landed  estates  on 
the  deaths  of  their  possessors.  If  there  be  equities  that 
demand  adjustment  with  those  survivors  who  surround 
the  deathbed,  let  us  deal  justly  and  even  mercifully  with 
those  who  might  under  existing  conditions  have  been 
successors ;  but  let  us  be  guided  by  the  principle  that  no 
man  is  entitled  to  anything  unless  it  is  the  product  of  his 
own  efforts,  and  that  he  can  have  no  valid  claim  upon 
wealth  produced  in  any  other  way,  except  through  his 
equal  right  with  other  men  as  one  of  the  community. 
Compelling  in  this  way  a  surrender  of  private  control  over 
land  and  the  issuance  of  a  new  title  by  the  community, 
let  us  adopt  such  laws  as  will  prevent  its  being  held  out 
of  use  for  speculative  purposes  when  men  are  so  plentiful 
and  opportunities  so  scarce,  for  the  present  destruction  of 
rights  to  use  the  earth  in  this  special  form  is  one  of  the 
greatest  evils  of  modern  civilization. 

There  will  be  time  enough  to  elaborate  a  plan  for  ac- 
complishing this  more  general  access  to  land  when  public 
sentiment  demands  that  justice  shall  be  done.  When 
William  W.  Astor  can  absolutely  control  a  large  part  of 
New  York  City,  and  the  Duke  of  Westminster  a  larger 
part  of  London,  while  the  value  of  the  land  and  buildings 
is  given,  not  by  the  moral,  mental,  or  physical  efforts  of 
the  possessors,  nor  by  any  act  whatever,  good  or  bad,  of 
theirs,  but  by  the  mere  existence,  desires,  and  efforts 
of  their  surrounding  fellow-creatures,  above  whom  Mr. 
Astor  and  the  Duke  are  installed  as  taskmasters  and 


KING   MAMMON.  1/7 

wealth-dictators,  governing  all  who  inhabit  those  portions 
of  the  earth  controlled  by  them  and  requiring  of  the  oc- 
cupants tribute ;  when  society  grants  to  these  favored 
sons  of  Mother  Earth  the  additional  power  of  naming  suc- 
cessors in  tyranny  to  rule  other  people  after  them  ;  when 
such  palpable,  unreasonable,  and  grossly  unnatural 
wrongs  exist  among  a  reading,  thinking,  and  fairly  intel- 
ligent people,  it  would  seem  that  no  man  with  a  spark  of 
the  heavenly  fire  of  justice  in  his  nature  can  refrain  from 
the  denunciation  of  such  iniquity  and  a  vigorous  effort  to 
destroy  it.  One  thing  is  certain  :  awakening  intelligence 
will  not  long  continue  a  system  under  which  the  Dutch- 
man who,  according  to  some  of  the  school  histories, 
once  bought  Manhattan  Island  of  its  Indian  inhabitants 
for  a  value  equivalent  to  twenty-four  dollars,  might  have 
placed  the  city  of  New  York,  by  the  assistance  of  a  few 
descendants  and  a  few  wills,  absolutely  under  the  owner- 
ship of  a  single  heir.  The  absurd  and  outrageous  theory 
of  land  tenures  by  which  a  man  may  get  all  he  can,  keep 
all  he  gets,  and  then  transmit  his  claim  to  a  successor 
among  those  who  follow  him,  thus  empowering  him  to 
live  idly  and  luxuriously  off  the  proceeds  of  the  labor  of 
his  less  fortunate  associates,  and  to  repeat  the  transfer  of 
his  monopoly  at  the  end  of  his  own  existence,  till,  event- 
ually, the  many  pay  tribute  to  the  few  for  the  mere  op- 
portunity to  live,  and  breathe,  and  work  on  God's  foot- 
stool, cannot  be  maintained  much  longer  before  the 
advancing  thought  of  thousands  who  are  now  sharply 
inquiring  why  they  have  no  privileges  and  opportunities. 
Aristocracy  with  titles  in  Europe,  and  aristocracy  without 
titles  in  the  United  States  will  soon  have  to  answer  why 
men  claim  the  divine  right  of  kings  to  reign  by  succes- 
sion, and  by  what  authority  they  propose  to  transmit  the 
power  to  other  men. 

Among    the    mountains    of    California    the   student    of 
12 


1/8  KING   MAMMON. 

sociology  may  any  day  see  a  rude  and  imperfect  picture 
of  man's  earthly  existence  in  the  growth  of  one  of  the 
giant  sequoias  which  have  attracted  to  their  shrines  of 
wonder  pilgrims  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  Towering 
four  hundred  feet  toward  the  heavens,  the  huge  tree, 
thirty  feet  in  diameter  at  the  base,  is  so  vast  in  its  dimen- 
sions that  no  conception  of  its  actual  form  can  be  gained 
except  by  viewing  it  from  a  distance.  If  we  scan  the 
crevices  of  its  outer  bark  or  scrutinize  the  divisions  of  its 
withered  foliage  in  herbariums,  our  knowledge,  however 
minute,  will  not  give  to  us  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
tree  itself.  So  with  the  earth  of  which  the  great  tree  is 
a  symbol.  If  we  delve  among  the  trivial  minutiae  of 
earthly  life,  dissecting  this  fragment  of  social  existence, 
and  comparing  those  minute  observances  of  human  cus- 
toms embodied  in  the  hair-splitting  practice  of  the 
courts,  the  grand  picture  of  human  life  and  earth  itself  in 
their  reality  will  not  be  revealed  to  us  any  more  than  a 
clear  view  of  the  great  sequoia  can  be  obtained  by  search- 
ing the  pores  of  its  bark  with  a  microscope. 

The  history  of  the  sequoia  is  also  like  the  history  of 
earth,  for  in  the  early  period  of  its  existence  the  young 
giant  developed  nothing  in  the  form  of  life  transmission 
from  its  own  substance.  It  was  barren  like  the  earth 
amid  the  ancient  epochs  of  its  history.  There  came  a 
time,  however,  when  new  life  appeared  from  the  bosom 
of  the  sequoia,  and  a  time  when  life  developed  upon 
earth — seeds  among  the  branches  of  the  forest  giant,  man 
in  his  early  existence  on  the  planet  he  inhabits.  Among 
the  swaying  boughs  of  the  great  tree  thousands  of  small 
burrs  appear — types  of  the  social  groups  into  which  man- 
kind forms.  Within  the  little  burrs,  millions  of  tiny  seeds 
maintain  life  and  secure  development  from  the  great  body 
of  the  tree,  just  as  man  derives  his  sustenance  from  the 
bosom  of  Mother  Earth.  Finally,  the  little  seeds  of  forest 


KING   MAMMON. 

life,  like  the  little  men  of  a  more  diversified  existence, 
complete  their  allotted  period  of  connection  with  the 
great  life  reservoir.  The  opening  burrs  assume  a  brownish 
tint  in  the  sunbeams  that  fall  upon  them,  the  tiny  seeds 
within  their  cells  darken  with  advancing  age,  the  folding 
partitions  of  their  little  home  turn  slowly  backward  in  the 
drying  air,  and  each  little  seed  is  launched  outward  on  an 
uncertain  journey  by  the  rough  breath  of  the  autumn 
wind.  What  future  is  to  be  allotted  to  the  tiny  seed  which 
thus  drifts  down  from  the  high  boughs  of  the  great  tree, 
none  can  tell.  We  only  know  that  it  may  contain  life, 
but  its  future  we  cannot  predict.  Perhaps  it  may  become 
the  initial  point  of  a  grand  progress  and  existence,  per- 
haps it  may  have  within  itself  no  germ  of  development, 
and  possibly  it  may  perish  in  an  unfortunate  environ- 
ment near  the  base  of  the  great  column  whence  it  pro- 
ceeded. As  the  little  seed  of  the  sequoia  buds,  lives, 
grows,  develops,  and,  finally,  at  the  termination  of  its 
career,  begins  a  new  and  mysterious  progress,  so  the 
little  earth-seeds  which  we  call  men  exist  during  the  brief 
period  of  a  human  lifetime,  and  at  its  close  they  are 
launched  into  the  vast  universe  surrounding  them  to 
achieve — can  any  one  reveal  what?  Is  it  a  new  life  for 
the  man  and  the  seed,  or  is  it  extinction  ? 

When  we  reflect  upon  the  helplessness  of  earthly  exist- 
ence,— how  we  came  here  without  any  volition  of  our 
own ;  how  we  await  the  summons  of  death  with  no 
power  whatever  to  prolong  our  own  lives  or  the  existence 
of  those  we  love  ;  how,  with  all  our  civilization  and  our 
boasted  intellectual  development,  we  cannot  even  com- 
prehend the  life-principle  of  the  little  flower  crushed  be- 
neath our  feet,  nor  tell  whence  its  life  really  came  nor 
whither  it  goes ;  how  our  minds  become  tired  and  con- 
fused with  a  sense  of  their  own  imperfections  when  we 
attempt  to  project  our  thoughts  throughout  the  universe 


ISO  KING  MAMMON. 

and  to  really  comprehend  the  idea  of  illimitable  space 
and  eternity  of  duration — when  we  attempt  in  this  way 
to  measure  the  infinite  by  the  finite,  to  say  how  many 
miles  in  the  distance  across  God's  universe,  or  how  many 
centuries  in  the  existence  of  the  matter  of  which  the  earth 
is  formed,  or  how  much  real  proprietary  claim  a  sequoia- 
seed  has  in  the  tree  which  bears  it,  or  a  man  can  obtain 
in  his  earthly  home — when  we  have  thought  of  all  these 
things  with  an  honest  desire  to  know  all  we  can  of  truth, 
ought  we  not  humbly  and  reverently,  realizing  our  absurd 
arrogance,  to  lay  down  forever  all  claims  to  property  in 
the  despotic  and  unreasonable  sense  in  which  men  have 
desired  that  unjust  privilege,  and  to  abandon  entirely  the 
tyrannical  idea  that  the  future  as  well  as  the  present  is 
ours  to  control  ? 


CHAPTER  XIL 

FROM  POVERTY  TO  WEALTH. 

A  man  is  the  "whole  encyclopedia  of  facts.  77ie  creation  of  a  thousand 
forests  is  in  one  acorn,  and  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome,  Gaul,  Britain,  Amer- 
ica lie  folded  already  in  the  first  man.  .  .  .  Every  man  takes  care  that  his 
neighbor  shall  not  cheat  him.  But  a  day  comes  when  he  begins  to  care  that 
he  do  not  cheat  his  neighbor.  Then  all  goes  well.  He  has  changed  his 
market-cart  into  a  chariot  of  the  sun. — R.  W.  EMERSON. 

IN  this  chapter  will  be  presented  as  briefly  as  may  be 
consistent  with  clearness,  a  survey  of  those  changes  in 
property  rights  and  methods  of  succession  that  have  pre- 
ceded the  era  in  which  we  live,  the  special  object  being 
to  explain  those  mental  and  physical  conditions  that  have 
underlain  the  methods  of  transferring  property  from  one 
generation  to  the  next  in  different  stages  of  civilization. 
Necessarily,  within  the  narrow  limits  of  this  book,  such  an 
effort  cannot  be  a  history  of  property  and  inheritance,  for 


KING   MAMMON.  l8l 

that  would  involve  the  history  of  the  human  race  and  of 
civilization,  requiring-  many  volumes  for  its  adequate  dis- 
cussion. Neither  can  it  be  a  treatise  on  actually  existing 
laws  of  succession,  for  the  laws  relating  to  bequests  and 
inheritance  in  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world  are  the  most 
artificial  and  complex  of  all  legal  dicta,1  and  are  so  ca- 
pricious in  their  details,  even  where  the  general  principles 
are  identical,  that  their  investigation  becomes  a  notoriously 
difficult  and  vexatious  pursuit  for  the  law  student,  exas- 
perating to  all  but  the  mere  plodder.  The  nature  of  the 
work  herein  attempted  will  be  rather  a  comparison  of  life 
in  the  present  with  the  earlier  progress  of  the  human  race, 
and  an  effort  to  express  clearly  the  origin  of  the  principles 
now  established  in  our  laws  connecting  the  rights  of  the 
living  with  the  privileges  of  the  dead,  so  that  the  busy  man 
who  cannot  find  the  time  necessary  for  special  investiga- 
tions, may,  if  he  desire,  easily  comprehend  the  general 
nature  of  the  inquiry  and  verify  its  results  by  further  re- 
search. 

It  is  a  cardinal  principle  of  all  true  education  that  it 

1  "  Successions  involve  two  of  the  most  important  classes  of  cases  aris- 
ing constantly  and  uniformly  in  all  civilized  human  societies.  One  is 
the  right  of  a  person  by  an  act  or  other  instrument,  to  dispose  of  his 
property  after  his  death  ;  the  other  is  the  right  of  succession  to  the  same 
property,  in  case  no  such  post-mortuary  disposition  is  made  of  it  by  the 
owner.  The  former  involves  the  right  to  make  last  wills  and  testaments ; 
and  the  latter  the  title  of  descent  and  the  distribution  of  property  ab  in- 
testato." — JUDGE  STORY. 

"  We  find  one  nation  basing  the  rights  of  inheritance  upon  those  of 
primogeniture,  another  dividing  the  inheritance,  some  equally,  others 
unequally,  amongst  the  male  and  female  issue ;  others  again  amongst 
the  issue  equally,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  females ;  and  in  Malabar  and 
Canara  we  find  the  females  inheriting  to  the  exclusion  of  the  males. 
Some  nations  acknowledge  succession  by  right  of  representation  and  the 
right  to  inherit  by  the  order  of  proximity.  The  diversity  upon  this  sub- 
ject that  prevails  amongst  different  nations  is  still  greater  when  we  come 
to  deal  with  collateral  successions,  and  the  arbitrary  character  of  the 
rules  is  still  more  obvious.  It  is  impossible  to  reduce  the  canons  of  in- 
heritance, which  are  recognized  as  the  law  of  any  country,  to  any  gen- 
eral or  leading  principle  without  assuming  some  maxim  not  necessarily 
or  not  naturally  connected  with  such  canons." — Grady's  "Hindoo 
Law." 


182  KING   MAMMON. 

must  proceed  from  the  known  to  the  unknown.  Accord- 
ingly, let  us  look  immediately  around  us  in  the  present. 
In  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century,  its  material 
conditions,  involving  the  vast  wealth  of  society  with  the 
immensity  and  diversity  of  production,  transportation,  and 
exchange,  are  familiar  to  all  observers.  The  social  and 
governmental  institutions  by  which  this  vast  aggregate 
wealth  is  directed  and  transmitted  are  not,  however,  ex- 
cept by  minds  trained  to  legal  and  scientific  investigation, 
usually  the  subject  of  much  reflection.  These  will  repay 
investigation.  At  the  basis  of  the  whole  social  fabric  built 
up  in  this  country  of  people  associated  and  united  more  or 
less  rigidly  in  such  organizations  as  the  church,  the  labor 
or  trade  union,  the  fraternal  society,  the  partnership,  the 
corporation,  the  school  district,  the  county,  the  city,  the 
state,  and  the  nation,  with  its  great  contending  political 
parties,  exists  the  modern  family,  the  smallest  but  most 
important  type  of  government,  since  upon  the  institution 
of  marriage  and  the  nature  of  the  family  depend  nearly 
all  other  forms  of  social  life  and  social  morality. 

The  family  is  based  upon  sexual  relations,  and  radically 
upon  the  fact  that  men  do  not  come  into  the  world  like 
little  fishes,  each  ready  to  begin  the  struggle  for  existence 
without  further  protection,  but  that  in  the  human  race  the 
helplessness  of  infancy  necessitates  the  protection  of  the 
parent,  thus  developing  a  system  of  powers,  duties,  and 
responsibilities  between  husband  and  wife,  parent  and 
child,  involving  the  government  of  the  family.  The 
family  government  in  the  United  States,  like  other  forms 
of  government  and  power  of  all  kinds,  has  been  deprived, 
by  altruistic  development,  of  many  early  despotic  features. 
The  husband  as  head  of  the  family  is  still  a  species  of 
dictator,  entitled  to  nearly  absolute  control  of  the  property 
acquired  jointly  by  the  matrimonial  partners,  but  his 
wife's  equal  interest  in  the  community  property  is  recog- 


KING   MAMMON.  183 

nized,  although  it  is  not  adequately  guarded,  and  she  has 
no  means  of  protection  from  the  bad  management  that 
is  often  incidental  to  an  incompetent  husband's  supreme 
direction  of  their  possessions.  The  wife  now  possesses 
the  right  to  hold  separate  property  in  her  own  name,  and 
to  bequeath  it  at  her  death.  In  some  states  she  can  trans- 
act business  in  her  own  name  and  retain  individually 
its  profits. 

The  children  born  under  this  peculiar  alliance  are  slaves 
to  their  progenitors  until  the  sons  reach  the  age  of  twenty- 
one  years  and  the  daughters  the  age  of  eighteen.  By  law 
and  custom  the  head  of  the  family  is  made  responsible  to 
the  community  for  the  maintenance  of  his  offspring  dur- 
ing helpless  infancy,  and  also  responsible  to  a  certain 
extent  for  injuries  which  his  child-slaves  may  inflict  upon 
others.  Yet,  while  the  children  are  slaves,  the  rights  of 
the  parent  over  the  child  he  has  brought  into  the  world 
are  not  unlimited  in  the  modern  civilization.  Within  cer- 
tain limits  the  parent  may  castigate  or  otherwise  punish 
his  unruly  offspring,  but  if  what  the  majority  of  the  peo- 
ple consider  extreme  brutality  be  exhibited  in  this  punish- 
ment, society  will  interfere  and  punish  the  father  as  it 
would  any  other  culprit.  Recent  changes  in  the  spirit  of 
family  government  are  noticeable  in  the  restricted  powers 
of  the  school  teacher,  who  being  theoretically  in  the  place 
of  the  parent,  formerly  used  the  rod  very  severely  with 
the  approval  of  public  sentiment.  That  approval  is 
now  slowly  being  withdrawn,  and  the  use  of  corporal 
punishment,  except,  perhaps,  as  the  ultimate  means,  of 
controlling  savage  instincts,  dormant  or  active  in  the  mind 
of  every  child,  is  being  abandoned  in  the  public  schools. 

At  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  twenty-one,  according  to 
sex,  the  slave-children  are  emancipated,  having,  theoreti- 
cally, by  the  service  of  their  later  years,  compensated 
their  progenitors  for  the  labor  of  rearing  them  in  the  help- 


1 84  KING   MAMMON. 

less  period  of  their  early  existence.  Thereafter  the  chil- 
dren are  no  longer  members  of  that  family  in  a  legal 
or  governmental  sense,  for  society  imposes  upon  them 
no  further  restraints.  Any  wealth  produced  by  them  be- 
comes their  own  instead  of  the  property  of  their  parents, 
and  except  for  the  usual  and  natural  ties  of  affection,  they 
are  set  absolutely  free  from  the  laws  of  the  family  till  they 
become  by  marriage  a  party  in  a  new  government  of  this 
kind  under  the  relationship  of  wife  or  husband  and  parent. 
Having  thus  theoretically  cancelled  by  service  their 
obligations  to  their  progenitors,  the  children  are  absolved 
from  further  legal  obligations  to  the  parent,  and  the  par- 
ent is  released  from  all  further  legal  responsibility  for  the 
acts  of  the  children. 

If  the  death  of  the  wife  occurs,  the  surviving  husband 
retains  absolute  control  and  possession  of  the  property 
held  jointly  during  his  life,  but  she  may  bequeath  her 
separate  property.  When  the  husband  dies,  the  surviving 
wife  retains  her  half  of  the  community  property  and  he 
bequeaths  his  own  half  to  her  or  to  others,  as  he  may  de- 
sire. If  the  husband  fails  to  make  a  will,  the  state  provides 
a  rule  of  succession  to  the  property  that  might  have  been 
bequeathed  by  which  the  property,  after  reserving  one-third 
to  the  surviving  wife,is  divided  according  to  consanguinity, 
first  among  descendants,  second  among  ascendants,  and, 
after  them,  among  collaterals  under  rules  in  which  the 
assumption  is  that  children  are  the  natural  successors  to 
all  wealth  accumulated  by  their  intestate  progenitors,  and 
that  so  long  as  any  human  beings  can  be  found  who  are 
related  by  blood  in  any  way,  however  remote,  to  the 
decedent,  their  rights  of  succession  exclude  all  others, 
no  matter  what  connection  may  have  existed  between 
them  and  the  decedent.  Finally,  when  the  succession  of 
consanguinity  fails,  the  property  escheats  to  public  owner- 
ship. 


KING   MAMMON.  185 

This  in  general  is  the  government  of  the  family  in  this 
country  at  the  present  time,  and  the  least  knowledge  of 
history  will  enable  any  person  to  understand  that  its  des- 
potism has  been  greatly  modified  within  comparatively  re- 
cent years.  The  slightest  observation  of  recent  legislation 
will  also  show  that  the  transformation  of  family  govern- 
ment and  the  further  emancipation  of  its  subordinate 
members  are  still  going  on.  Our  social  institutions,  based 
on  the  nature  of  the  family,  are  no  more  stable  in  the  pres- 
ent than  they  have  been  in  the  past,  and  the  despotic 
powers  of  the  head  of  the  family  are  being  more  and  more 
restricted  every  year,  just  as  the  similar  powers  of  kings 
and  queens  in  the  larger  social  government  have  been 
restricted.  It  is  generally  known  that  not  so  very  many 
years  ago  the  husband's  power  over  the  wife,  with  the  ap- 
proval of  public  sentiment,  extended  to  flogging  her  for  in- 
subordination ;  at  the  present  time  society  often  meditates 
the  flogging  of  wife-beaters  and  will  scarcely  permit  the 
incensed  parent  to  flog  his  child  with  any  considerabe 
severity,  no  matter  what  the  provocation  may  have  been. 
Similarly,  a  steady  progress  has  been  made  toward  con- 
ferring upon  the  wife  social  privileges  of  every  kind  ex- 
actly equal  to  those  of  the  husband,  and  at  the  session  of 
nearly  every  legislature  in  the  United  States  some  change 
in  existing  laws  is  suggested  or  enacted,  embodying  pro- 
gress in  this  direction. 

Remembering  these  recent  transitions  in  family  govern- 
ment, let  us  now  investigate  the  nature  of  the  family  as 
it  appeared  in  ancient  history.  The  human  race  has  pre- 
served records  of  its  history,  more  or  less  complete  and 
authentic,  during  a  lapse  of  time  estimated  somewhat 
differently  by  careful  investigators,  but  covering  a  period 
of  from  five  thousand  to  seven  thousand  years,  and  ex- 
tending from  the  present  far  back  into  the  history  of  an- 
cient Egypt  before  the  pyramids  were  built.  The  com- 


1 86  KING   MAMMON. 

parison  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  family  can 
be  made  by  selecting  from  any  country  of  the  ancient 
civilization  ;  but  as  the  Roman  family  embodied  the  ideas 
of  the  past  in  their  most  distinctive  type,  and  as  its  records 
are  more  complete  than  others,  it  will  best  serve  for  the 
example  of  older  ideas  of  family  rights  and  duties.  The 
Roman  family  comprised,  in  its  distribution  of  power, 
rights,  and  duties,  only  an  absolute  dictator  and  his  slaves. l 
The  head  of  the  family,  usually  the  oldest  male  in  a  direct 
line  of  descent,  was  a  little  king,  controlling  with  tyranni- 
cal privileges  the  possessions,  the  occupations,  and  even 
the  lives  of  his  subjects,  who  comprised  his  wife  or  wives, 
his  children,  his  grandchildren  or  other  descendants,  and 
his  servants,  cattle,  and  dogs,  all  being,  so  far  as  the  pos- 
session of  individual  rights  of  control  were  concerned,  his 
abject  slaves.  Sons  were  not  emancipated  by  age,  but 
were  subject  to  the  control  of  the  father  till  he  saw  fit  to 
confer  upon  them  their  liberty.  During  this  period  of 
servitude  the  parent  was  entitled  to  control  and  use  all 
that  they  might  produce,  and  he  could  sell  their  services 
to  another  man.  Daughters  were  similarly  subject  to  the 
father  till  their  marriage,  when  they  became  the  slave- 
property  of  their  husbands.  The  identity  of  the  wife  was 
completely  merged  in  that  of  the  husband,  and  she  had, 
as  an  individual,  no  rights  whatever,  except  the  right  of 
existence  ;  and  there  is  good  reason  for  believing  that  in 
the  early  history  of  the  family,  even  this  privilege  was 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  husband.  The  father  in 
early  Roman  history  was  invested  with  the  power  of 
punishing  his  son  to  the  final  extreme  of  death,  and  in- 
stances of  its  infliction  are  recorded,  although  this  savage 
idea  of  parental  rights  gave  way  before  the  later  develop- 

1  A  text  of  ancient  Hindu  law  reads :  "  A  wife,  a  son,  and  a  slave 
are  alike  incapable  of  property ;  the  wealth  which  they  may  earn  is  reg- 
ularly acquired  for  the  man  to  whom  they  belong." 


KING   MAMMON.  l8/ 

ment  of  Roman  civilization. T  The  children,  young  or  old, 
till  emancipation,  possessed  no  rights  of  contract  even 
in  marriage,  and  the  father  could  select  for  his  son  a  wife, 
or  give  his  daughter  in  marriage,  and  there  was  no  eva- 
sion of  his  decree.  In  the  later  Roman  civilization,  these 
arbitrary  powers  of  the  parent  were  greatly  modified  by 
advancing  thought,  as  our  own  laws  are  now  being  trans- 
formed, but  the  record  of  Patria  Potestas  descends  to  us 
in  sharp  contrast  with  the  modern  conception  of  a  correct 
family  government. 

It  is  obvious  that  from  the  time  when  men  believed 
that  a  father  could  rightfully  kill  a  son  in  order  to  control 
him,  and  sell  a  daughter  if  it  suited  his  personal  wishes, 
to  the  present  era,  when  sons  and  daughters  frequently 
almost  control  their  parents,  a  great  change  has  occurred 
in  the  nature  of  family  government.  It  is  reasonable, 
also,  to  conclude  (as  we  can  see  the  change  still  going  on) 
that  this  progress  will  be  projected  far  into  the  future  of 
the  human  race  ;  and,  finally,  to  infer  that  similar  changes 
were  going  on  long  before  the  records  of  the  ancient 
Roman  family  were  inscribed  in  its  national  history  and 
before  those  people,  or  any  other  human  beings,  preserved 
records  of  their  past. 

Of  the  existence  of  mankind  on  earth  as  regarded  by 
modern  science,  it  is  evident  that  recorded  history  reveals 
but  a  small  fragment.  Where  civilized  man  now  exists, 
his  prehistoric  ancestor  has  left  among  the  bones  of  mam- 
mals extinct  long  before  any  history  was  written,  rude 

1 "  In  the  forum,  the  senate,  or  the  camp,  the  adult  son  of  a  Roman  citi- 
zen enjoyed  the  public  and  private  rights  of  a  person;  in  his  father's 
house  he  was  a  mere  thing;  confounded  by  the  laws  with  the  movables, 
the  cattle  and  the  slaves,  whom  the  capricious  master  might  alienate  or 
destroy,  without  being  responsible  to  any  earthly  tribunal.  The  majesty 
of  the  parent  was  armed  with  the  power  of  life  and  death  ;  and  the  ex- 
amples of  such  bloody  executions,  which  were  sometimes  praised  and 
never  punished,  may  be  traced  in  the  annals  of  Rome  beyond  the  time 
of  Pompey  and  Augustus." — EDWARD  GIBBON. 


188  KING   MAMMON. 

drawings  of  the  animals  he  hunted  and  of  himself  pursu- 
ing them,  a  naked  savage  living  apparently  on  game  and 
fish.  Where  the  finest  modern  machinery  now  whirls  in 
complex  movement,  the  men  who  lived  before  history 
was  written  have  dropped  the  flint  tools  and  weapons  of 
early  existence  in  quantities  so  great  that  the  prehistoric 
life  of  human  beings  in  great  numbers  cannot  be  denied, 
and  these  relics  are  found  in  places  so  remote  from  modern 
industry  that  only  an  immense  period  of  time  between 
past  and  present  life  can  explain  the  location  of  such 
implements. 

How  long  man  has  lived  on  earth  it  is  impossible  to 
prove,  for  none  can  know  what  the  age  of  the  earth  may 
be  in  a  condition  fit  to  sustain  human  life.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  many  thousands  of  years  must  have  elapsed 
since  the  ancestors  of  the  men  and  women  clothed  in 
worsteds  and  silks,  who  now  ride  in  palace-cars,  were 
naked  savages  trapping  foxes  and  spearing  fish  to  de- 
vour in  their  den-like  caves. 

In  establishing  the  antiquity  of  man,  it  is  exceedingly 
important  that  we  shall  possess  an  accurate  definition  of 
what  really  constitutes  the  genus  homo,  and  at  what  par- 
ticular stage  in  his  progress  he  becomes  worthy  of  that 
appellation.  Man  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  United 
States  is  not  the  man  who  carved  his  image  on  the  mam- 
moth tusk  of  La  Madeleine  ;  and  man  of  that  period  was 
not  what  man  must  have  been  a  thousand  centuries  before 
that  time.  Similarly,  man  of  the  present  is  not  what  man 
of  the  future  will  be.  Taking  any  point  in  the  existence 
of  the  human  race  and  tracing  its  history  backward  into 
antiquity,  we  find  the  creature  in  mental  and  moral  char- 
acteristics becoming  continually  more  and  more  like  the 
brutes  whom  he  kills  and  devours.  Pursuing  a  contrary 
direction  and  approaching  the  present,  we  find  that  every 
century  raises  man  higher  and  higher  above  his  surround- 


KING   MAMMON.  189 

ings.  Neither  the  origin  of  man  nor  his  destiny  is,  in 
the  mind  of  the  real  thinker,  solved,  and  he  still  inquires 
what  was  man  millions  of  years  in  the  past  and  what  will 
he  become  millions  of  years  in  the  future. 

A  frequent  estimate  of  the  period  of  man's  existence  on 
earth  as  a  tool-using  animal,  is  400,000  years.  Hitherto, 
all  popular  conceptions  of  the  duration  of  life  on  the  earth's 
surface  have  proved  to  be,  when  more  accurate  informa- 
tion became  ascertainable,  absurdly  brief,  and  it  is  not 
improbable  that  eventually  we  shall  be  compelled  to  ex- 
tend our  estimate  of  the  period  of  man's  earthly  existence 
into  millions  of  years.  Time  is  long  ;  and  while  man  pro- 
gresses rapidly  under  certain  conditions,  he  may  have 
remained  nearly  stationary  in  civilization  for  centuries 
under  less  favorable  circumstances  for  development. 

So  far  as  history  teaches,  the  foundation  of  every  civil- 
ization is  a  barbarous  condition  of  the  race.  Beyond  that 
fact  written  records  teach  nothing,  but  every  scrap  of 
information  obtainable  from  the  observation  of  human 
development  indicates  that  before  the  early  barbarians 
wrote  history  they  had  already  progressed  by  minute 
changes  for  thousands  and  perhaps  millions  of  years. 
Modern  thought  regards  every  social  organization  wher- 
ever situated,  and  however  rudimentary  its  form,  as  re- 
sembling in  its  nature  a  plant,  having  within  itself  the 
principle  of  development  and  change,  of  growth  and  decay, 
according  to  its  nature  and  environment.  All  societies, 
wherever  and  whenever  existing,  whether  they  be  Dig- 
gers of  California,  Bushmen  of  Australia,  ancient  Egyp- 
tians, Greeks  and  Romans,  or  Hindus  and  Englishmen 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  are  organizations  constantly 
changing  with  greater  or  less  rapidity  according  to  their 
environment  and  the  period  of  their  growth,  and  subject 
at  any  time  to  calamities  that  may  involve  their  destruc- 
tion. We  know  from  written  history  that  the  people  of 


IQO  KING   MAMMON. 

the  United  States  to-day  are  not  what  the  inhabitants  were 
in  1776  in  social  habits,  customs,  and  beliefs;  we  know 
that  the  English  people  are  not  now  what  their  ancestors 
were  when  the  Norman  conqueror  subdued  England,  and 
we  know  that  they  were  not  then  what  the  inhabitants  of 
the  country  were  when  it  was  first  known  to  the  Romans. 
In  a  similar  way  we  know  that  the  Greeks  of  Plato's  day 
were  not  the  Greeks  of  the  Homeric  period,  and  that  the 
Jews  of  the  present,  are  not  such  Jews  as  followed  their 
flocks  and  herds  in  the  barbaric  pastoral  life  described 
in  the  early  chapters  of  the  Bible. 

In  pursuance  of  this  line  of  thought,  it  is  only  reason- 
able to  conclude,  although  we  can  never  know  the  fact 
from  human  records,  that  the  men  who  first  inscribed  the 
history  of  their  deeds  or  the  traditions  of  their  fathers, 
were  not,  in  social  characteristics,  like  their  ancestors 
who  existed  ages  before  their  time,  for  it  is  conclusively 
proved  that  man  has  existed  on  earth  thousands  of  years 
before  written  history  was  produced.  Furthermore,  if 
we  consider  the  social  existence  of  the  very  lowest  tribes 
of  human  beings  now  known,  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude 
that  their  condition,  however  brutish  and  undeveloped, 
when  first  discovered  and  thus  made  known  to  more 
civilized  men,  was  not  the  identical  condition  under  which 
their  own  ancestors  lived ;  for  in  no  part  of  the  ascending 
scale  of  human  existence  can  we  truthfully  deny  the  law 
of  progress. 

No  matter  how  low  and  ignorant  and  brutal  the  condi- 
tion of  such  savages  may  have  been  when  discovered,  if 
we  may  judge  their  previous  history  by  what  we  positively 
know  of  other  human  development,  the  same  race  must 
have  once  been  in  a  condition  even  lower  and  more  brutal. 

The  conclusion  is  almost  forced  upon  us,  therefore,  that 
all  social  organizations  may  be  regarded  as  plants,  not 
identical  in  species,  but  allied  with  one  another,  growing 


KING  MAMMON.  191 

in  different  locations  and  under  different  circumstances. 
Some  have  only  recently  sprouted  from  whatever  uncer- 
tain origin  it  may  please  religion  or  speculative  science, 
or  both  combined,  to  ascribe  to  them  ;  others  have  devel- 
oped leaves,  blossoms,  and  fruit.  How  long  they  will  con- 
tinue to  grow  and  blossom  and  bear,  we  know  not ;  for 
we  cannot  understand  all  the  laws'  that  control  their 
growth,  and  of  the  complete  life-history  of  such  plants 
we  have  no  records.  Eventually,  however,  it  is  quite 
certain  that  either  by  the  casualties  of  struggling  growth, 
or  by  the  ultimate  unfitness  of  earthly  environment,  they 
will  decay  and  perish. 

The  thought  is  also  unavoidable  that  every  society, 
like  every  plant,  must  pass  through  its  successive  stages 
of  development  from  an  early  condition,  wherein  its  in- 
dividuals are  scarcely  distinguishable  in  their  manners 
and  customs,  ideas  and  instincts  from  the  brutes  surround- 
ing them,  to  those  later  conditions  which  comprise  such 
wisdom  and  charity  and  humanity  as  are  developed  in 
the  present  civilization,  and,  consecutively,  to  that  further 
condition  far  in  advance  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when 
the  people  of  this  age  may  become  the  barbarians,  and 
when  their  descendants  will  look  back  at  our  habits,  and 
beliefs,  and  social  institutions,  the  more  comprehensive 
thinker  with  a  pitying,  sympathetic  tolerance  for  strug- 
gling humanity  and  a  curious  scientific  interest  in  our 
history  :  the  narrow-minded  creature,  solely  of  the  age 
in  which  he  lives,  with  a  bitter  aversion  toward  the  dis- 
carded forms  of  the  past,  a  blind  adoration  of  the  ancient 
institutions  that  have  been  retained,  and  an  unreasoning 
opposition  towards  any  new  developments  for  the  life 
still  in  advance  of  the  human  race.  It  can  scarcely  be 
doubted,  in  the  light  of  present  information,  that  the 
ancestors  of  all  civilized  races  passed  through  the  succes- 
sive stages  of  development  now  indicated  by  the  exist- 


IQ2  KING   MAMMON. 

ence  of  savage  tribes,  who  have  already  emerged  from 
lower  conditions,  and  who,  if  undisturbed  by  more 
powerful  races,  would  gradually  make  further  advance- 
ment towards  our  own  civilization. 

The  belief  is  irresistible  from  these  data,  that  the  an- 
cestors of  every  people  now  existing  on  the  face  of  the 
globe,  at  one  time  lived  in  a  condition  approximating  to 
that  of  wild  animals,  and  involving  a  life  supported  by 
the  spontaneous  products  of  nature  obtained  by  gather- 
ing fruits,  catching  fish  and  molluscs,  and  hunting  game. 
Life  was  perpetuated  by  sexual  relations  not  really  differ- 
ent from  those  now  displayed  among  the  higher  types  of 
the  brute  mammalia,  in  which  males  and  females  of  this 
savage  existence  were  entirely  devoid  of  the  modern 
aversion  to  sexual  relations  between  individuals  closely 
connected  by  ties  of  blood.  The  whole  social  condition 
of  mankind  in  that  period  may  be  estimated  in  the  ex- 
pression that  peaceful  humanity  resembled  deer,  and 
warlike  humanity  tigers. '  It  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to 
the  actual  sexual  relations  existing  in  many  savage  tribes 
when  first  discovered,  to  the  history  of  ancient  Egypt, 
Greece,  and  Rome,2  and  to  portions  of  the  Hebrew  rec- 
ords 3  to  comprehend  how  closely  the  ancestral  humanity 
of  which  we  have  written  records  approaches  this  early 
condition.  Even  in  recent  years  we  can  note  the  slow 
growth  of  an  aversion  to  the  marriage  of  first  cousins, 
and  see  clearly  that  no  such  aversion  existed  in  the  past. 

Under  such  a  system  of  indiscriminate    cohabitation 

1 1  understand  that  some  advanced  thinkers  are  loath  to  accept  these 
conclusions,  but  they  cannot  be  rejected  unless  we  are  prepared  to 
assume  that  the  lowest  savages  known  to  civilization  were  created  in  the 
exact  condition  in  which  they  were  discovered,  and  that  the  universal 
law  of  progress  did  not  apply  to  their  previous  social  condition. 

2  "  In  Egypt,  the  marriage  of  brothers  and  sisters  was  admitted  without 
scruple   or   exception ;  a   Spartan   might  espouse  the  daughter  of  his 
father,  an  Athenian  that  of  his  mother ;  and  the  nuptials  of  an  uncle 
with  his  niece  were  applauded  at  Athens  as  a  happy  union  of  the  dearest 
relations." — EDWARD  GIBBON. 

3  Leviticus  xviii.,  27. 


KING   MAMMON.  193 

and  reproduction,  it  is  evident  that  paternity  is  indeter- 
minate, just  as  it  is  among  domestic  animals  roaming  at 
large ;  and  accordingly  in  many  rudimentary  forms  of 
society  we  find  that  descent  from  one  generation  to  the 
next  either  is  or  has  been  traced  in  the  female  line 
for  the  very  good  reason  that  no  other  method  is  origin- 
ally possible.  Sometimes  traces  of  the  former  custom 
remain  in  the  language  long  after  the  sexual  relations 
that  caused  it  have  been  abandoned.  The  elimination 
of  sexual  relations  between  individuals  in  a  direct  line  of 
descent  appears  to  be  the  first  development  toward  the 
family,  but  their  retention  indiscriminately  among  those 
of  the  same  level  of  descent  continues,  the  individuals 
being  related  in  various  ways  or  not  related,  according 
to  modern  systems  of  consanguinity,  but  all  being  re- 
garded in  their  own  system  as  brothers  and  sisters,  each 
having  a  mother  and  regarding  all  the  males  of  the  older 
grade  as  fathers.  Thus,  under  such  a  system,  all  the  men 
and  women  of  one  grade  are  husbands  and  wives  and  at 
the  same  time  regarded  as  brothers  and  sisters,  each 
having  one  mother  but  many  fathers.  Every  male  in  any 
grade  is  in  theory  the  son  of  all  the  men  above,  and  the 
father  of  every  child  in  the  grade  below. 

The  modern  aversion  to  these  primitive  sexual  relations 
between  consanguineous  associates  is  one  of  the  advances 
in  morality  that  the  race  has  accomplished.  Observa- 
tion of  the  ill-effects  involved  in  transmitting  life  from 
a  father  and  mother  nearly  related  may  have  effected  the 
change  in  sentiment ;  and  like  other  changes  the  transition 
is  still  going  on.  Ultimately  it  will  involve  a  strong 
feeling  of  duty,  not  now  generally  existing,  that  every 
child  has  a  right  to  be  well  born,  and  that  the  evil  effects 
of  consanguineous  marriages  are  only  one  form  of  a  thou- 
sand other  ills  that  are.  inflicted  upon  an  innocent  pos- 
terity by  the  sins  and  the  ignorance  of  the  parents.  Men 


194  KING   MAMMON. 

are  now  changing  their  ideas  every  day  about  sexual  re- 
lations, and  so  their  ancestors  changed  theirs  in  the  past. 
Hence,  in  this  line  of  progress,  we  next  find  the  aban- 
donment of  sisters  as  wives.  In  a  later  stage,  the  broth- 
ers, real  or  assumed,  of  savage  association,  possess  one 
or  more  wives  in  common,  but  they  obtain  them  from 
other  tribes,  and  the  moral  principle  of  not  taking  a  wife 
from  within  the  small  family  tribe  becomes  firmly  estab- 
lished, a  species  of  marriage  exchange  being  arranged 
between  contiguous  tribes,  whereby  each  obtains  its 
women  from  the  others,  the  males  remaining  with  the 
tribe  where  they  were  born  and  the  females  invariably 
leaving  it  on  their  marriage  and  becoming  identified  with 
the  tribe  of  the  husband  or  husbands.  Indiscriminate 
sexual  relations  of  men  with  women  not  related  to  them 
afterward  became  transformed,  probably  by  the  develop- 
ment of  the  affections,  into  forms  more  or  less  resembling 
the  monogamic  marriage  of  our  present  civilization.  Noth- 
ing is  more  evident  in  the  study  of  early  institutions  than 
the  fact  that  no  such  sentiment  as  love  (beyond  the  parental 
instinct  or  the  sexual  passion)  exists  in  the  savage's  mind, 
and  he  being  incapable  of  the  thought  or  feeling,  it  found 
no  expression  in  his  social  institutions. 

Humanity  in  its  early  social  forms  is  in  all  parts  of  the 
world  found  organized  into  little  groups  of  people  allied 
by  ties  of  blood,  descended  either  actually  or  theoretically 
from  a  common  ancestor,  and  headed  by  a  chief,  who  is 
ordinarily  selected  for  a  leader  by  the  males  of  the  group. 
Such  a  group  may  be  termed  a  great  family,  inasmuch  as 
it  comprises  a  number  of  men  related  with  one  another 
and  possessing  wives  and  children  under  the  very  lax 
sexual  relations  of  such  social  development  ;  but  the 
Latin  word  gens  applied  in  Roman  history  to  a  later  form 
of  this  social  organization  is  a  brief  expression  that  is 
often  used  to  designate  the  little  family  tribe  of  primitive 


KING   MAMMON.  IQ5 

society.  In  various  forms  of  development  and  transition 
the  gens  has  been  observed  in  the  social  structure  of 
nations  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  After  the  abandon- 
ment of  sister-marriage,  the  usual  features  of  its  organiz- 
ation are  :  a  membership  composed  of  males  allied  by  a 
common  descent ;  the  establishment  of  a  chief  by  selec- 
tion or  descent';  an  obligation  of  its  members  not  to 
marry  in  the  gens ;  common  property  and  common 
inheritance  by  all  members  of  the  gens  in  everything 
possessed ;  a  common  name  for  all  members  ;  provisions 
by  which  strangers  could  be  adopted  into  the  gens  ;  and 
religious  ceremonies  common  to  the  organization,  usually 
embodying  ancestor  worship. 

The  features  most  striking  in  this  early  organization 
are  the  obligation,  invariably  reached  sooner  or  later  in 
the  development  of  the  gens,  by  which  marriages  among 
its  members  are  prohibited,  every  man,  whether  he  has 
one  wife  or  many,  or  whether  wives  are  communal  in  the 
gens,  being  required  to  procure  her  from  another  tribal 
family  ;  the  absence  of  any  private  rights  of  ownership, 
their  land  being  the  common  property  of  the  gens,  and 
personal  effects  the  common  property  of  the  family  with- 
in the  gens  ;  and,  finally,  the  existence  of  a  common 
name  by  which  all  members  of  the  gens  were  known, 
each  being  further  distinguished  by  a  qualifying  addition 
to  the  tribal  appellative. 

In  America  the  Iroquois  exhibited  a  fine  development 
of  this  tribal  organization,  being  organized  into  numerous 
gentes,  which  were  again  grouped  into  somewhat  larger 
organizations,  then  into  still  larger  tribes,  and  finally  into 
a  confederacy.  If  they  had  remained  undisturbed  by  the 
whites,  the  process  of  political  development  would  have 
doubtless  gone  on  till  they  formed  a  powerful  Indian 
nation  under  a  monarch.  Everything  that  is  known 
about  the  organization  of  the  Aztec  government  indicates 


196  KING   MAMMON. 

that  it  was  formed  by  the  consolidation  of  such  tribes, 
the  process  having  been  extended  farther  under  a  more 
highly  developed  civilization  than  the  Iroquois  achieved. 
Abundant  evidence  of  the  early  tribal  organization  still 
exists  among  the  poorer  classes  of  Mexico  and  is  pre- 
served in  their  traditions.  Mexico  to-day  is  an  associa' 
tion  of  clans  developed  to  about  the  status  of  the  clans 
of  early  Scottish  and  Irish  history,  characterized  by  all 
their  fierceness,  jealousy,  tyranny,  and  vindictive  pas- 
sion ;  acknowledging  the  absolute  supremacy  of  tribal 
leaders  or  family  heads  ;  and  occupying  in  their  haciendas 
lands  corresponding  to  those  of  the  ancient  Roman  gens 
or  the  tribal  possessions  of  the  Iroquois.  It  is  the  con- 
dition of  a  primitive  race  whose  early  religion  and  social 
customs  have  been  thinly  veneered  by  the  forms  of  Chris- 
tianity and  the  outward  semblance  of  a  republic,  but  in 
which  the  habits  and  customs,  the  inner  religious  faith, 
the  family  life,  the  sexual  relations,  and  the  ethical  ideas 
all  indicate  the  imperfect  and  incomplete  transition  from 
the  forms  of  social  life  that  have  been  described.  The 
Mexican  governor  is  a  barbarous  chief,  the  judge  is  a 
petty  despot  who  rewards  and  punishes  without  con- 
ception of  equity,  the  marriage  relation  is  only  one 
degree  removed  from  indiscriminate  tribal  sex  relations, 
and  men  who  are  not  relatives  owe  to  one  another  no 
duties,  barring  theft  and  murder. 

The  early  history  of  Greece  and  Rome  shows  plainly 
the  organization  of  this  family  group,  and  its  effects  ex- 
tended far  down  into  the  history  of  their  civilization.  In 
more  modern  Europe,  the  clans  of  Scotland  and  the  septs 
of  Ireland,  countries  famed  in  song  and  tradition  for 
the  Mc's  and  the  O's,  as  remnants  of  the  common  gens 
names,  were  relics  of  the  condition  which  existed  univer- 
sally in  earliersocial  history. '  The  patriarchal  family  of  the 

1  "  The  collective  ownership  of  the  land  by  groups  of  men  either  in 


KING  MAMMON.  197 

Bible  is  the  pastoral  form  of  a  more  highly  developed  gens 
than  the  savage  organization.  Going  back  into  the  his- 
tory of  Egypt  and  Assyria,  the  same  community  of  family 
property  can  be  recognized  after  the  destruction  of  other 
features  of  gens  organization,  it  existing  side  by  side 
with  descent  in  the  female  line,  and  to  some  extent  with 
the  marriage  of  sisters,  all  relics  of  a  savage  past  surviv- 
ing in  the  midst  of  a  well-developed  civilization.  In 
Hindustan  all  the  essential  features  of  the  gens  survive 
to  this  day,  and  its  traces  can  also  be  found  among  the 
Chinese. 

The  village  community  of  India,  another  form  of  which 
is  now  perishing  in  Russia,  is  a  developed  form  of  the 
gens  applied  to  agriculture.  The  German  mark,  traces 
of  which  still  survive  in  Europe,  was  an  expiring  form  of 
the  same  social  organization  giving  way  before  the  de- 
velopment of  wealth.  The  village  community  of  India, 
under  which  the  possession  of  wealth  has  been  adjusted 
for  many  centuries,  is  a  group  of  people,  not  necessarily 
confined  to  a  village,  but  inhabiting  a  district  of  several 
thousand  acres  resembling  in  its  extent  what  are  termed 
townships  in  the  United  States.  The  inhabitants  of  this 
district  usually  live  in  a  small  town,  but  the  village 
community  is  the  people  and  the  entire  territory  they 
possess.  The  community  comprises  a  number  of  fami- 
lies usually  allied  by  ties  of  blood,  each  living  in  a  sepa- 
rate household,  but  closely  associated  in  a  village  near 
the  lands  they  cultivate,  which  are  occupied  and  used  as 
common  property.  Within  the  household,  property  rights 
are  common  in  the  family  ;  within  the  community  the 
rights  to  land  are  common  to  all  members,  and  its  use  is 
apportioned  among  the  families  of  the  community,  a 

fact  united  by  blood-relationship,  or  believing  or  assuming  that  they  are 
so  united,  appears  to  have  once  been  the  primitive  or  early  condition  of 
every  nation  " — Sir  Henry  S.  Maine  in  "  Early  Institutions." 


198  KING   MAMMON. 

right  of  use,  being  guaranteed  to  all,  and  the  apportion- 
ment being  made  by  general  agreement  or  by  authority 
delegated  to  a  chief.  The  Russian  community,  which 
has  now  given  way  before  the  universal  advance  of  pri- 
vate ownership  tinder  the  development  of  wealth,  was  a 
very  similar  social  organization,  the  inhabitants  of  the 
village  assembling  once  in  every  three  years  to  re-dis- 
trict their  lands  among  the  families. r  To  arrive  at  the 
structure  of  these  village  communities  from  the  savage 
gens,  we  have  only  to  imagine  a  people  like  the  Iroquois 
already  organized  into  the  gens,  and  even  into  a  confed- 
eration, abandoning  gradually  their  life  of  hunting,  fish- 
ing, and  roaming,  and  substituting  for  it  an  existence  by 
tilling  the  soil.  At  the  time  America  was  discovered,  ag- 
riculture had  already  appeared  among  the  Iroquois  in  the 
cultivation  of  maize  ;  and  had  their  progression  been  un- 
disturbed by  invasion,  it  would  have  developed  into 
forms  of  life  more  or  less  resembling  the  village  commun- 
ity, when  the  growth  of  population  and  the  arts  stimu- 
lated agriculture  and  lessened  the  opportunities  for  hunt- 
ing. 

It  seems  evident  from  these  instances  of  social  organ- 
ization, that  men  have  become  allied  into  families,  fami- 
lies into  groups  of  kindred,  wherein  strangers  might  be 
adopted,  and  these  groups  into  tribes  and  confederacies 
from  which  nations  and  national  government  were 
evolved.  In  the  early  stages  of  this  social  evolution,  when 
property  was  extremely  limited,  no  such  thing  as  a  will 
was  known.  The  idea  of  wealth  in  the  ancient  family 
and  in  the  larger  family  group,  was  that  of  communal 

1  "  In  the  Hindu  Joint  Family  everything  is  common.  No  member 
can  say  where  he  has  rights  separate  from  the  others.  In  the  House 
Community  of  Croatia,  Dalrnatia,  and  Illyria,  the  land  is  communal,  but 
there  is  private  property  in  movables.  In  the  true  Village  Community  the 
land  is  only  held  partly  as  community  property.  The  people  live  in  sep- 
arate houses,  and  are  on  the  verge  of  private  property." — MAINE. 


KING  MAMMON.  199 

possession.  Land  was  communal  in  the  gens,  and  per- 
sonal property  communal  in  the  family.  Distinct  from 
this  subordinate  idea  of  wealth,  however,  was  the  idea 
of  authority.  Over  each  gens  ruled  a  chief  whose  will 
was  law  so  long  as  he  continued  in  that  position  ;  and 
over  the  family  ruled  its  head,  usually  the  oldest  male, 
whose  will  within  his  jurisdiction  was  also  supreme. 
Society  among  savages  was  normally  militant,  the  head 
of  the  family  being  a  captain,  the  chief  of  the  gens  a  col- 
onel, and  the  great  chief  of  the  tribe  a  general,  all  being 
officers  who  did  not  personally  own  the  possessions 
under  their  control  more  than  the  officers  of  a  modern 
army  own  its  cannon  and  camp  stores,  but  who  were 
authorized  by  the  people  to  direct  their  movements  in 
war  and  to  adjust  their  differences  in  peace.  To  com- 
prehend the  development  of  social  institutions,  it  is  often 
necessary  to  remember  the  distinction  between  authority 
and  ownership. 

In  the  family,  the  eldest  son  usually  succeeded  to  the 
father's  position  at  the  head  on  the  death  of  the  latter, 
unless  there  were  important  reasons  for  altering  the  suc- 
cession, just  as  the  heir  to  the  throne  succeeds  in  an  he- 
reditary monarchy,  which  is  merely  the  application  of  the 
ancient  family  idea  to  a  larger  government.  The  old- 
est son  succeeded,  not  as  owner  of  the  family  wealth, 
but  as  leader,  a  position  for  which  he  was  theoretically, 
and  often  actually  fitted  by  age  and  experience  in  the 
practical  duties  of  life.  Under  the  universal  law  of  the 
gens  prohibiting  marriages  within  its  limits,  each  son  was 
compelled  to  seek  a  wife  or  wives  from  a  neighboring 
gens,  and  each  daughter  to  marry  into  another  family 
tribe,  if  she  married  at  all.  Thus  the  daughters  went  out 
of  every  gens  and  became  members  of  those  into  which 
they  married,  while  the  sons  remained  within  the  original 
organization  and  brought  their  wives  to  it.  As  all  land 


200  KING   MAMMON. 

was  communal  in  the  gens,  there  arose  in  this  way,  after 
the  institution  of  marriage  outside  the  gens,  the  necessity 
of  barring  descent  of  wealth  through  females,  because  by 
their  removal  from  the  gens  at  marriage  they  would 
inevitably  transfer  the  communal  wealth  from  one  gens 
to  another,  which  was  contrary  to  the  savage  theory  of 
wealth  possession.  From  this  condition  undoubtedly 
arose  the  system  of  descent  through  males  alone,  which 
succeeded  the  earlier  tracing  of  descent  through  females, 
and  which  is  so  entirely  different  from  modern  ideas  of 
consanguinity,  tracing  through  both  males  and  females. 
Under  the  name  of  agnatic  kindred,  descent  through 
males  formed  a  prominent  feature  in  the  Roman  laws. 
While  that  system  of  descent  absolutely  prevailed  in 
Rome,  it  is  evident  that  the  people  had  recently  emerged 
from  the  primitive  tribal  condition,  and,  like  all  other 
human  beings,  they  retained  the  custom  of  succession 
long  after  it  had  lost  its  real  significance  and  use.  The 
singular  persistence  of  customs  beyond  the  time  when 
they  are  actually  needed,  or  when  they  serve  any  useful 
purpose,  is  illustrated  by  the  survival  to  some  extent  of 
primogeniture  in  England  long  after  it  has  been  aban- 
doned in  other  parts  of  the  world. 

The  communal  principle  of  the  gens  and  family  is 
illustrated  by  the  emancipation  and  inheritance  of  sons  in 
the  Roman  family.  The  son  was  freed  by  the  power  of 
his  father,  but  thereafter  was  incapable  of  inheriting  any 
portion  of  his  father's  possession,  the  inheritance  being 
confined  to  the  unemancipated  sons.  Rightly  considered, 
the  emancipation  of  a  son  was  the  budding  of  a  new 
family  from  the  parent  stock.  The  unemancipated  son 
was  the  soldier-slave  of  his  father,  but,  nevertheless,  he 
possessed  his  acknowledged  right  to  an  interest  in  the 
communal  wealth  if  he  remained  in  the  family.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  he  chose  to  give  up  communal  family 


KING  MAMMON.  2OI 

relations,  he  might,  on  emancipation,  become  the  head  of 
his  own  family,  but  he  was  forever  cut  off  from  further 
rights  in  the  little  communal  group  he  had  abandoned. 

In  every  country  the  traces  of  extinct  social  institutions 
have  survived  in  the  systems  of  succession,  the  best 
example  being  found  among  the  Hindus,  who  have,  in 
a  peculiarly  unprogressive  way,  retained  their  early  insti- 
tutions almost  unchanged.  When  the  English  people 
took  possession  of  Hindustan,  wills  were  unknown  among 
its  inhabitants.  Since  that  time  testaments  have  been 
slowly  introduced,  but  the  faithfulness  of  the  race  to  its 
early  institutions  does  not  readily  give  way.  The  com- 
munal property  of  the  Hindus  has  already  been  described. 
Their  family  organization  is  patriarchal  in  its  nature.  The 
father  is  a  leader,  and  the  wives  and  children  are  his  subjects, 
apparently  his  slaves,  but  really  existing  in  the  communal 
possession  of  all  property.  Fathers  and  children,  or  even 
grandchildren,  sometimes  work  together  for  generations, 
holding  communal  property  without  any  division.  Instead 
of  initiating  new  families,  as  the  Romans  did  by  emanci- 
pating a  son,  the  Hindus  accomplish  the  same  thing  by 
a  partition  of  family  property  whenever  the  needs  of 
their  existence  may  require  it,  or  at  the  demand  of  some 
member  either  at  or  before  the  death  of  the  father. 
Women  in  the  Hindu  family  are  exclusively  dependents, 
having  the  right  of  maintenance  but  not  of  inheritance, 
the  property  being  divided  equally  among  the  sons,  who 
are  charged  with  the  support  of  the  females.  Notwith- 
standing this  condition  of  the  woman,  however,  she  has, 
under  the  name  of  stridhdna,  exclusive  control  of  gifts 
from  her  husband  or  near  relatives,  although  her  earnings 
are  a  part  of  the  common  fund.  The  form  of  the  Hindu 
family  is  greatly  due  to  the  religious  faith  of  its  members, 
which  involves  the  worship  of  ancestors  in  a  form  some- 
what more  rigorous  than  that  manifested  by  other  conser- 


2O2  KING  MAMMON. 

vatives  of  this  country.  The  futurity  of  every  Hindu  is 
supposed  to  be  endangered  by  the  torments  of  a  hell 
called  Put,  from  which  he  must  secure  exemption  by 
the  birth  of  a  son,  who  will  redeem  him  from  eternal 
suffering,  partly  by  the  mere  fact  of  his  birth  and  existence, 
partly  by  performing  certain  ceremonies  after  the  father's 
death.  Sons  are  accordingly  in  greater  demand  in  Hin- 
dustan than  among  other  people,  in  France  for  instance, 
and  when  the  natural  succession  fails,  artificial  sons  are 
created  to  fill  the  vacancy  and  perform  the  funeral  rites. 
To  accomplish  this,  the  fiction  of  making  a  son  by  adop- 
tion is  universally  established,  by  which  the  son  of  some 
other  person,  usually  a  relative  of  the  man  without  male 
offspring,  is  transferred  into  the  latter's  family,  so  that  the 
terrors  of  Put  may  be  extinguished.  The  theory  of  adop- 
tion is  a  change  of  paternity.  It  is  done  by  the  consent 
of  the  real  parent,  and  can  only  be  effected  when  a  man 
is  without  male  issue.  The  religious  idea  involved  in 
the  transaction  is  that  the  Hindu  owes  a  debt  to  his 
progenitors,  presumably  for  their  having  produced  him, 
which  can  only  be  extinguished  by  the  birth  of  a  son, 
real  or  fictitious.  Among  the  Hindus  the  word  son 
applies  to  all  male  descendants,  and  the  word  parent  to 
all  progenitors.  All  the  features  of  their  social  system 
show  that  it  is  the  survival,  somewhat  developed,  of 
tribal  and  family  relations  such  as  existed  among  the 
American  Indians,  and  such  as  appear  to  have  been  at 
the  foundation  of  social  institutions  in  every  part  of  the 
world. 

The  Mohammedan  laws  of  succession  are  more  highly 
developed  than  those  of  the  Hindus,  and  in  the  restraints 
they  impose  upon  both  the  power  of  the  testator  and  the 
succession  of  the  natural  heir  they  are  in  advance  of  the 
usual  laws  adopted  by  Christian  nations  ;  for,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  vindictive  father  cannot  entirely  disinherit  his 


KING  MAMMON.  203 

child,  and,  on  the  other,  the  rebellious  child,  devoid  of 
filial  duty,  cannot  succeed  to  all  of  his  father's  property 
regardless  of  the  latter's  wishes.  The  principles  of  this 
law  bear  comparatively  few  traces  of  ancient  institutions, 
and  they  are  founded  upon  the  following  passage  from 
the  Koran  : 

"God  hath  thus  commanded  you  concerning  your 
children.  A  male  shall  have  as  much  as  two  females  ; 
but  if  they  be  females  only,  and  above  two  in  number, 
they  shall  have  two-thirds  parts  of  what  the  deceased 
shall  leave  ;  and  if  there  be  but  one,  she  shall  have  the 
half;  and  the  parents  of  the  deceased  shall  have  each  of 
them  a  sixth  part  of  what  he  shall  leave  if  he  have  a  child. 
But  if  he  have  no  child,  and  his  parents  be  his  heirs,  then 
his  mother  shall  have  the  third  part ;  and  if  he  have 
brethren,  his  mother  shall  have  a  sixth  part,  after  the 
legacies  which  he  shall  bequeath,  and  his  debts  shall  be 
paid.  Ye  know  not  whether  your  parents  or  your  children 
be  of  greater  use  to  you.  This  is  an  ordinance  from  God, 
and  God  is  knowing  and  wise.  Moreover,  ye  may  claim 
half  of  what  your  wives  shall  leave  if  they  have  no  issue  ; 
but  if  they  have  issue,  then  ye  shall  have  the  fourth  part  of 
what  they  shall  leave,  after  the  legacies  which  they  shall 
bequeath  and  the  debts  be  paid  ;  they  also  shall  have  the 
fourth  part  of  what  ye  shall  leave  in  case  ye  have  no  issue  ; 
but  if  ye  have  issue,  then  they  shall  have  the  eighth  part 
of  what  ye  shall  leave  after  the  legacies  which  ye  shall 
bequeath  and  your  debts  be  paid ;  and  if  a  man's  or  a 
woman's  substance  be  inherited  by  a  distant  relation,  and 
he  or  she  have  a  brother  or  sister,  each  of  them  two  shall 
have  a  sixth  part  of  the  estate  ;  but  if  there  be  more  than 
this  number,  they  shall  all  be  equal  sharers  in  a  third  part, 
after  payment  of  the  legacies  which  shall  be  bequeathed, 
and  the  debts  without  prejudice  to  the  heirs.  They  will 
consult  thee  for  thy  decision  in  certain  cases  :  say  unto 
them,  God  giveth  you  these  determinations  concerning 
the  more  remote  degrees  of  kindred.  If  a  man  die  with- 
out issue,  and  have  a  sister,  she  shall  have  half  of  what  he 
shall  leave,  and  he  shall  be  heir  to  her  in  case  she  leave 
no  issue  ;  but  if  there  be  two  sisters,  they  shall  have  be- 


204  KING  MAMMON. 

tween  them  two-third  parts  of  what  he  shall  leave ;  and 
if  there  be  several,  both  brothers  and  sisters,  a  male  shall 
have  as  much  as  the  portion  of  two  females." 

These  teachings  are  not  in  appearance  the  slowly 
transformed  social  customs  of  ancient  races,  but  the 
work  of  one  of  the  ablest  lawgivers  (so  far  as  laws;  can 
really  be  given)  that  ever  existed.  Enunciated  at  the 
early  period  of  Mohammed,  his  doctrines  are  a  credit  to 
the  intelligence  of  the  Prophet,  for,  except  in  their  prefer- 
ence for  males,  they  provide  a  tolerably  just  distribution 
of  property  among  survivors  of  the  same  family.  Under 
the  Mohammedan  laws  based  on  the  Prophet's  teaching, 
claims  against  the  estate  are  paid  in  nearly  the  same 
order  usually  approved  in  the  United  States,  funeral  ex- 
penses coming  first,  then  ordinary  debts,  and  finally  leg- 
acies within  prescribed  limits.  All  kinds  of  property  are 
inherited  alike.  Private  property  exists  except  in  the 
limitation  of  making  wills.  When  he  is  in  health,  a  man 
can  give  away  his  property  to  the  exclusion  of  his  natural 
successors,  if  he  desires  to  do  so,  but  deathbed  gifts  are 
not  lawful  beyond  one-third  of  the  clear  residue  of  the 
estate  after  payment  of  funeral  expenses,  and  are  not 
binding  upon  lawful  heirs  beyond  that  amount.  All  leg- 
acies in  excess  of  this  proportion  are  invalid  unless  con- 
firmed by  the  heirs  after  the  death.  Acknowledgments  of 
debts  in  favor  of  an  heir  on  the  deathbed  are  void,  and 
any  gift  made  in  contemplation  of  death  is  treated  as  a 
legacy,  conveying  one-third  of  the  residue,  but  no  more. 
A  man  can  give  away  all  his  property  when  in  health, 
and  it  is  valid.  If  he  gives  it  away  when  he  is  sick  and 
afterwards  recovers  his  health,  the  gift  is  valid.  But  if 
he  dies  in  consequence  of  the  sickness,  the  gift  applies 
only  to  the  amount  he  is  permitted  to  bequeath,  and  the 
remainder  goes  to  his  heirs.  By  permission  of  the  heirs, 


KING   MAMMON.  2O5 

legacies  of  any  amount  can  be  made,  and  when  no  heirs 
exist,  the  whole  estate  can  be  bequeathed. 

The  Romans,  at  the  time  their  unreliable  early  traditions 
were  first  preserved  in  the  form  of  history  to  be  handed 
down  to  men  of  a  later  era,  were  apparently  a  people  who 
had  reached  a  development  similar  to  that  of  the  Aztecs 
when  Hernando  Cortez  interfered  with  the  natural  devel- 
opment of  that  race  by  his  invasion.  These  Romans 
were  slightly  modified  savages,  having  the  capacity  and 
conditions  necessary  for  rapid  development,  and  they 
advanced  far  more  rapidly,  it  is  probable,  than  the  Aztecs 
would  have  done  had  they  remained  unconquered  by  the 
Spaniards.  In  the  earliest  periods  of  Roman  history  the 
people  were  associated  into  clans  or  gentes,  very  similar 
to  those  small  tribal  organizations  of  aggregated  families 
which  existed  under  another  name  among  the  Iroquois. 
If  all  the  males  of  a  modern  family  bearing  the  same 
name  and  related,  however  distantly,  could  be  collected 
into  one  place  and  compelled  to  live  near  one  another  in 
a  communal  association,  with  their  wives  and  children,  the 
result  would  express  the  idea  that  should  be  entertained  of 
the  gens,  whether  among  savages  now  existing  or  among 
the  ancient  people  of  Europe  and  Asia.  Where  these 
pages  are  written  there  still  exist  remnants  of  the  gentes 
into  which  the  Diggers  of  California  were  organized,  each 
having  its  defined  territory,  its  elected  chief,  its  com- 
munal property,  its  ancestor  worship,  and  its  slight  dif- 
ferences in  language  from  other  gentes  formed  in  adja- 
cent territory.  In  a  mere  fragment  of  one  of  these  family 
tribes  still  remaining,  the  succession  to  the  position  of 
chief  is  a  matter  of  serious  discussion  among  the  few 
remaining  members,  for  the  present  leader  is  feeble.  The 
Diggers  and  the  far  superior  Iroquois  were  both  much 
below  the  advancement  reached  by  the  ancient  Romans 
in  their  earlier  history,  so  far  as  industrial  progress  is  con- 


206  KING   MAMMON. 

cerned ;  but  in  governmental  conceptions,  the  Roman 
gens  was  identically  the  same  social  organization  that 
existed  among  the  Indians. 

In  all  the  early  history  of  the  Romans,  no  such  thing 
as  a  will  was  known,  and  the  small  amount  of  wealth 
accumulated  by  the  barbarians  was  communal  in  their 
tribes  and  families,  progressing  downward  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  within  the  gens  primarily,  as  one  or- 
ganization, and  within  the  family  secondarily,  as  an- 
other. The  head  of  the  family  was  its  leader,  and  its 
women  and  children  were  slaves.  Infanticide  was  com- 
mon when  children  were  not  desired,  and  women  were 
beaten  and  otherwise  abused  worse  than  domestic  ani- 
mals are  in  the  present  age.  But  little  wealth  existed, 
and  individual  or  distinct  rights  of  property,  except  per- 
haps in  trifling  articles  of  personal  contrivance,  were  not 
recognized.  Every  member  of  the  gens  was  supposed 
to  divide  his  possessions  with  any  other  member  if  the 
latter  needed  the  gift.  Between  these  little  tribes  war 
often  existed,  and  the  fraternal  feeling  usually  exhibited 
in  the  family  tribe  was  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  treach- 
erous, vindictive,  bloodthirsty  spirit  displayed  toward 
strangers.  Man's  feelings  in  that  age  were  expressed 
in  a  tiger's  protection  of  its  whelps,  and  a  tiger's  destruc- 
tive instincts  toward  everything  not  possessing  its  own 
blood. 

Under  such  a  system,  the  family  possession  of  land 
and  other  wealth  continued  indefinitely,  and  new  mem- 
bers merely  took  their  natural  places,  or  if  there  were 
divisions,  the  principle  of  equal  rights  among  male  off- 
spring, or  males  in  the  order  of  consanguinity,  was  rec- 
ognized. 

The  first  wills  introduced  in  Rome  were  merely  the 
transfers  to  successors  of  positions  involving  powers  and 
duties  without  regard  to  wealth,  for  the  idea  of  property 


KING   MAMMON.  2O? 

was  scarcely  recognized  in  the  transaction.  The  family 
was  a  little  government,  and  the  head  of  the  family  was 
its  king,  controlling  all  his  descendants,  old  and  young, 
and  thus  superintending  the  management  of  the  com- 
munal possessions.  In  every  monarchy  the  succession 
to  the  throne  is  a  great  question  that  agitates  the  minds 
of  the  people  when  the  established  line  fails  ;  and  so,  in 
the  little  monarchy  of  the  ancient  family,  nearly  the 
same  the  world  over,  the  leader  who  reached  old  age 
without  male  issue  must  provide  a  successor  in  that  case 
or  in  any  other  when  the  regular  succession  became  in- 
advisable or  impossible.  Out  of  such  circumstances 
arose  the  first  wills,  which  were  made  in  early  Rome 
only  when  no  heirs  existed.  These  wills  were  executed 
and  the  succession  passed  with  great  solemnity  before 
the  death  of  the  testator,  probably  in  many  cases  before 
he  was  even  dangerously  ill.  They  were  also  irrevoc- 
able, and  the  entire  transaction  was  apparently  the  abdi- 
cation of  a  little  family  monarch  in  favor  of  a  particular 
successor,  by  and  with  the  consent  of  the  people  he  gov- 
erned. At  first  the  idea  of  property  was  scarcely  con- 
nected with  the  Roman  testament,  but  in  the  final  civil- 
ization of  that  people  the  will  became  secret  and  revoc- 
able, assuming  the  modern  form  of  giving  wealth  at  the 
death  of  the  testator. 

The  early  principle  of  appointing  a  successor  was  con- 
tinued in  the  Roman  laws  long  after  the  idea  of  power 
had  lessened  by  civilization  and  the  idea  of  property  had 
increased,  for  the  later  laws  always  recognized  the  doc- 
trine that  the  heir  was  a  successor  under  the  theory  an- 
nounced in  the  saying  that  ( '  the  king  never  dies. "  Under 
the  Roman  law  the  person  who  became  the  dead 
man's  heir,  was  in  a  legal  sense  the  dead  man -brought  to 
life  for  another  existence.  The  heir  was  a  "  universal 
successor,"  and,  if  he  accepted  the  position,  was  com- 


208  KING   MAMMON. 

pelled  to  pay  all  the  lawful  debts  against  the  estate,  even 
if  they  amounted  to  more  than  its  value.  After  consider- 
able wealth  developed  among  the  Romans,  with  its  in- 
variable accompaniment  of  private  ownership,  and  when 
wills  became  firmly  established  as  a  means  of  disposing 
of  that  wealth  by  gifts  at  the  death  of  the  owner,  the  heir 
seems  to  have  been  what  our  modern  laws  term  an  exe- 
cutor, who,  under  the  Roman  methods,  received  as  his 
compensation  for  settling  the  estate,  the  somewhat  un 
certain  value  of  whatever  might  be  left  after  he  paid  the 
debts  and  distributed  the  bequests,  instead  of  receiving 
his  compensation  in  the  form  of  a  fee,  according  to  the 
modern  system.  As  wealth  accumulated  under  the 
Roman  civilization,  the  original  nature  of  the  will  as  a 
mere  transfer  of  leadership  was  transformed  gradually 
into  a  method  of  giving  away  wealth  at  death,  and  in 
its  final  development  among  that  people,  the  privilege  of 
making  wills  became  very  similar  to  our  modern  system 
of  legacies,  the  Roman  law  furnishing  the  basis  for 
modern  statutes.  Deathbed  gifts  in  Rome  were,  how- 
ever, finally  limited  to  three-fourths  of  the  estate,  be- 
cause the  decedent  who  made  too  many  and  too  liberal 
bequests  might  not  be  able  to  secure  the  heir-executor  or 
"universal  successor"  to  distribute  the  property,  for 
under  the  compulsory  payment  of  debts  regardless  of  the 
amount  inherited,  the  heir's  position  was  frequently 
not  desirable,  and  bequests  were  invalid  unless  a  succes- 
sor to  the  dead  man  would  take  the  property,  pay  the 
debts,  and  execute  the  bequests. 

The  remants  of  the  ancient  savage  organization  of  the 
family  tribe  clung  to  the  laws  of  Rome  far  into  its  civili- 
zation, for  the  emancipated  son,  originally  cut  off  justly 
from  participation  in  a  communal  family,  because  by 
emancipation  he  himself  was  made  capable  of  becoming 
the  head  of  another  family,  was,  long  after  the  develop- 


KING   MAMMON.  209 

ment  of  private  property,  still  deprived  of  all  inheritance, 
notwithstanding  the  reason  and  the  justice  of  the  disin- 
heritance had  passed  away  with  the  decline  of  communal 
property  and  the  development  of  wealth.  Finally,  the 
inconsistency  was  obliterated  by  a  change  in  the  laws 
making  emancipated  sons  capable  of  inheritance. 

The  principles  of  inheritance  among  the  Romans  were 
those  usually  derived  from  the  structure  and  theory  of  the 
ancient  family  and  the  gens  of  associated  families.  So  far 
as  wealth  was  concerned,  in  all  cases  before  wills  were 
developed,  and  in  cases  of  intestacy  afterwards,  the  wealth 
held  exclusively  in  the  family  under  the  direction  of  its  leader 
went, first, to  the  direct  male  descendants  not  emancipated  ; 
second,  to  the  nearest  agnatic  kindred,  or  relatives  de- 
scended with  the  deceased  exclusively  through  males  from 
a  common  ancestor  ;  third,  to  the  gentiles,  or  members  of 
the  little  family  tribe  in  which  all  bore  the  same  surname, 
the  principles  being  based  upon  the  ideas  that  property  is 
at  first  communal  in  the  family  and  then  communal  in  the 
aggregation  of  families  constituting  the  gens,  with  the 
additional  idea  that  when  daughters  marry  they  are  cutoff 
completely  from  the  original  family  to  become  a  portion  of 
another  family  and  of  another  gens,  so  that  no  inheritance 
can  pass  into  another  family  tribe  through  the  blood  of 
females.  During  their  barbarous  condition,  the  line  of  de- 
scent among  the  Romans  was  through  males  exclusively, 
females  being  dependents  ;  but  in  their  final  civilization 
the  rule  of  inheritance  made  no  distinctions  in  age  or  sex 
among  descendants  and  eventually  included  emancipated 
sons  among  heirs,  thus  showing  the  decay  of  early  institu- 
tions. The  principle  of  primogeniture  as  applied  to  prop- 
erty in  the  period  succeeding  the  Middle  Ages  formed  no 
part  of  the  Roman  idea  of  succession  to  wealth. 

In  their  earliest  history  the  Greeks  of  the  Homeric  period 
appear  in  a  nearly  savage  condition  and  were  associated 
14 


210  KING   MAMMON. 

into  little  tribes  of  bloodthirsty  marauders,1  remarkably 
like  the  gentes  under  which  the  Iroquois  were  organized, 
and  having  the  same  characteristics  of  common  property, 
external  marriage,  and  a  common  name  based  either  upon 
an  actual  or  an  assumed  descent  from  a  common  ancestor. 
The  little  states  of  ancient  Greece  undoubtedly  arose  from 
the  consolidation  of  neighboring  clans,  as  the  Aztec 
government  was  formed  by  the  union  of  distinct  tribes. 
The  tribes  of  the  Iroquois  were  ready  to  develop  into  a 
similar  condition  when  the  discovery  and  colonization  of 
America  stopped  their  further  progress. 

In  early  Athenian  history,  the  descent  of  property  to  males 
exclusively  was  a  cardinal  principle,  the  direct  descend- 
ants being  the  preferred  successors,  and  the  women 
held  as  dependents.  The  succession  went  to  males  even 
if  the  women  who  survived  were  more  closely  related  to 
the  dying  man.  The  perpetuation  of  the  family  in  name 
and  power  was  at  the  basis  of  their  laws,  and,  as  among 
the  Romans,  the  adoption  of  sons,  where  a  natural  heir 
did  not  exist,  was  not  only  a  privilege,  but  a  duty.  As 
among  the  Hindus  of  to-day,  this  ceremony  virtually 
engrafted  a  scion  of  another  stock  into  the  broken  family 
tree  that  it  might  continue  to  bud  and  bear  fruit.  The  abso- 
lute dependency  of  the  Grecian  women  is  illustrated  by 
the  fact  that  when  a  husband  die'd,  his  widow  had  the 
option  of  returning  to  her  former  guardian  or  of  remaining 
with  her  children,  but  in  neither  case  could  she  retain 
control  of  any  family  wealth.  Still  the  females  were  pro- 

1  Describing  ancient  society,  Sir  Henry  Maine  says :  "  The  scene 
before  us  is  that  which  the  animal  world  presents  to  the  mental  eye  of 
those  who  have  the  courage  to  bring  home  to  themselves  the  facts 
answering  to  the  memorable  theory  of  natural  selection.  Each  fierce 
little  community  is  perpetually  at  war  with  its  neighbors,  tribe  with 
tribe,  village  with  village.  The  never  ceasing  attacks  of  the  strong  upon 
the  weak  end  in  the  manner  expressed  by  the  monotonous  formula 
which  so  often  recurs  in  the  pages  of  Thucydides,  '  they  put  the  men  to 
the  sword,  and  the  women  they  sold  unto  slavery.'  " 


KING   MAMMON.  211 

tected  and  had  the  right  of  maintenance,  for  when  the 
succession  went  to  the  male  heirs  according  to  the  an- 
cient rules,  the  females  otherwise  unprovided  for  were  em- 
powered to  demand  marriage  of  their  nearest  male  relative 
or  to  compel  him  to  settle  upon  them  a  dowry  proportioned 
to  his  means.  When  bequests  were  introduced  in  the  time 
of  Solon,  who  probably  only  formulated  in  the  law  a  cus- 
tom already  established,  the  power  of  bequeathing  could  be 
used  only  when  the  testator  had  no  male  heirs,  and  even 
then  it  was  valid  only  when  the  legatee  was  forced  to  marry 
one  or  more  of  the  female  descendants.  The  principle 
involved,  like  that  embodied  in  the  early  Roman  will,  was 
the  idea  of  providing  a  successor  in  the  leadership  of 
family  government.  The  nature  of  Grecian  ideas  of  inher- 
itance can  be  observed  in  the  present  laws  of  the  Hindus, 
which  have  been  preserved  among  that  strange  people, 
almost  stationary  in  their  civilization,  from  a  remote  an- 
tiquity. The  succession  in  both  instances  is  merely  the 
progress  of  the  communal  family,  growing  at  one  end 
while  it  perishes  at  the  other,  and  maintained,  if  possible, 
by  the  fiction  of  adopting  sons  when  the  natural  succes- 
sion fails. 

Among  the  Hindus,  whose  village  communities,  or 
agricultural  gentes,  have  already  been  described,  the  an- 
cient principles  of  inheritance  still  survive.  The  sons 
succeed  equally  to  the  possession  of  the  family  wealth  on 
the  death  of  the  father,  the  eldest  obtaining  a  few  heir- 
looms in  honor  of  his  position  as  head  of  the  family,  and 
the  women  are  treated  as  dependents  having  the  right  of 
maintenance.  The  theory  of  Hindu  wealth  being  that 
of  a  family  possession  in  which  all  members  of  the  family 
have  by  the  mere  fact  of  existence  a  communal  right, 
with  the  additional  right  of  partition  and  separation  under 
certain  circumstances,  it  will  be  at  once  seen  that  under 
such  principles  modern  wills  are  an  impossibility.  When 


212  KING   MAMMON. 

natural  successors  are  lacking,  the  Hindu  supplies  the 
deficiency  by  adopting  a  son  instead  of  naming  an  heir  in 
a  will ;  and  this  act,  performed  with  great  ceremony,  does 
identically  the  same  thing  originally  accomplished  in 
Greece  and  Rome  during  the  lifetime  of  the  testator  with 
equal  ceremony  by  means  of  the  ancient  will.  The  Hin- 
dus never  had  wills,  because  their  form  of  adoption  suf- 
ficed to  provide  new  family  members  when  the  natural 
line  of  descent  failed  ;  and  for  some  reason,  perhaps  the 
enervating  effect  of  a  warm  climate,  they  have  retained 
their  ancient  religion,  with  its  reverential  worship  of  the 
ancestor,  and  have  never  developed  into  the  greedy, 
bustling  accumulation  of  wealth  under  private  ownership 
characteristic  of  western  civilization. 

In  China  the  laws  and  customs  of  inheritance  are  very 
similar  to  those  of  the  Hindus,  involving  the  worship  of 
ancestors  as  a  duty  devolving  upon  the  eldest  son  on  the 
death  of  his  father.  The  family  organization  extends  to 
members  of  all  ages,  the  males  having  control  of  the 
property  and  the  females  being  dependents,  although  the 
mother  is  revered,  and  practically  is  given  much  control 
of  the  family  possessions.  The  partition  of  family  wealth 
is  often  made  during  the  life  of  the  father.  When  no  divi- 
sion occurs  till  his  death,  the  partition,  if  made  at  that  time, 
gives  to  the  eldest  son  the  leadership  of  the  family,  the  obli- 
gation of  worshiping  at  the  ancestral  tablets,  and  the  duty 
of  providing  for  his  surviving  mother.  In  compensation 
he  receives  certain  heirlooms  and  also  twice  the  portion 
of  wealth  allotted  to  each  of  his  brothers.  Unmarried 
daughters  have  the  right  of  dowry  on  marriage.  When  the 
family  property  is  small  it  is  often  held  in  common  for  sev- 
eral generations.  Adoptions  occur  as  among  the  Hindus, 
and  there  exists  the  same  dread  of  dying  without  a  son  to 
burn  incense  and  perform  other  ceremonies  for  the  father's 
welfare  in  the  next  world.  The  primitive  organization  of 


KING   MAMMON.  213 

families  in  the  gens  is  still  to  be  observed  in  China,  and  the 
nature  of  inheritance  is  in  accordance  with  those  early  in- 
stitutions. Their  land  is  still  held  under  the  public  own- 
ership characteristic  of  the  tribal  organization,  and  public 
rents  or  taxes  are  collected  for  its  use  without  the  existence 
of  any  absolute  private  ownership. 

The  Bible,  in  its  early  history  of  the  Hebrew  race, 
furnishes  interesting  indications,  although  no  connected 
history,  of  similar  principles  of  succession  among  the 
families  of  a  gens.  The  eldest  son  among  the  ancient 
Jews  had  a  double  portion,  corresponding  to  the  present 
custom  among  the  Chinese,  and  it  is  probable  that  this 
favor  and  his  succession  as  head  of  the  family  constituted 
the  birthright  mentioned  in  Genesis.  The  story  of  Zelo- 
phehad's  daughters  *  furnishes,  however,  the  clearest  indi- 
cation of  social  developments  of  that  day  among  the 
Jews.  Zelophehad  died,  leaving  five  daughters  but  no 
sons.  The  daughters  came  before  Moses  as  the  chieftain 
of  the  federated  tribes,  petitioning  that  they  should  re- 
ceive a  "  possession  among  the  brethren  of  their  father/' 
The  lawgiver  thereupon  directed  that  the  daughters 
should  receive  this  possession,  and  established  a  plan  of 
inheritance  passing  the  wealth  of  decedents,  first  to  sons, 
second  to  daughters,  third  to  brothers,  fourth  to  uncles, 
fifth  to  the  nearest  kinsman  beyond  these  degrees.  There 
was  more  trouble,  however,  over  these  ancient  probate 
proceedings,  for  the  leaders  of  the  gens  to  which  the 
daughters  belonged,  afterwards  came  to  Moses  and  com- 
plained that  if  the  inheritance  descended  to  the  daughters 
it  would  pass  to  another  tribe  when  they  married,  which 
was  evidently,  from  their  remarks,  contrary  to  Hebrew 
custom  and  all  previous  ethics,  as  it  disturbed  and  made 
inequitable  the  allotment  of  tribal  possessions.  Moses, 
accordingly,  to  avoid  these  difficulties,  decreed  that  the 

1  Numbers,  chapters  xxvii.  and  xxxvi. 


214  KING   MAMMON. 

daughters  of  Zelophehad,  and  all  other  daughters  receiv- 
ing an  inheritance  thereafter,  should  marry  within  the 
tribe  of  which  they  were  members,  instead  of  following 
the  usual  custom  of  marrying  into  another  family  group. 
The  five  sisters,  following  these  directions,  then  married 
their  cousins,  and  the  new  era  in  the  Hebrew  law  of 
inheritance  was  established.  The  story  indicates  the 
existence  of  family  clans,  each  with  communal  property, 
descent  and  leadership  in  the  male  line,  dependency  of 
women  and  obligation  to  marry  outside  the  clan.  The 
decree  of  Moses  was  a  step  forward,  changing  the  primi- 
tive rule  to  another  in  favor  of  woman's  rights.  Had  the 
lawgiver  been  a  conservative,  he  would  have  rebuked 
the  daughters  of  Zelophehad  when  they  made  their  re- 
quest, and  would  have  given  the  property  to  the  male 
collaterals  in  accordance  with  the  good  old  laws  of  every 
race  of  barbarians  whose  records  have  been  investigated. 
The  only  surprising  circumstances  connected  with  the 
change  thus  recorded  is  that  the  people  of  the  aggregated 
tribes  omitted  to  denounce  Moses  as  an  anarchist,  an  in- 
convenience which  he  escaped  owing,  probably,  to  the 
general  impression  that  the  new  social  doctrines  emanated 
from  the  Lord. 

The  history  of  ancient  Egypt,  deciphered  from  the  pic- 
ture-writing of  that  people, l  reveals  the  same  indications 
of  early  conditions,  the  children  of  these  ancient  families 
being  regarded  as  partners  in  the  family  possessions  from 
the  instant  of  their  birth.  The  eldest  son,  or  in  some 
instances  the  eldest  daughter,  for  the  condition  of  women 
in  ancient  Egypt  seems  to  have  been  unusually  favorable, 
ordinarily  succeeded  the  father  as  head  of  the  house,  but 
wealth  was  held  by  the  leader  in  trust  .for  the  entire 
family,  and  the  preference  extended  to  the  eldest  was 
merely  as  leader  and  not  as  owner.  The  wealth  of  the 
1  See  "  Primitive  Civilization  "  by  E.  J.  Simcox. 


KING   MAMMON.  215 

family  formed  a  common  fund  for  the  equal  advantage  ot 
all  members,  and  the  mother  of  the  family  was  accorded 
an  unusual  power  in  directing  the  use  and  expenditure  of 
the  family  possessions.  The  early  system  of  the  Egyp- 
tians was  very  similar  to  present  customs  among  the 
Hindus,  but  later  in  their  civilization  wills  were  intro- 
duced and  executed  with  the  solemnity  usually  attached 
by  the  ancients  to  such  transfers,  six  witnesses  being  re- 
quired to  attest  them.  The  little  that  is  known  of  the 
ancient  institutions  of  Chaldea  and  Assyria  indicates  that 
the  social  customs  of  these  nations  and  their  ideas  of  pro- 
perty and  succession  were  nearly  identical  with  those  of 
the  Egyptians.  The  two  most  noteworthy  characteristics 
of  the  latter  people  in  this  respect  were  the  practice  of 
marrying  sisters,  which  was  very  common,  and  many  in- 
dications in  their  records  that  they  had  traced  descent  in 
the  female  line.  The  early  customs  of  a  savage  existence 
must  have  descended  far  into  their  civilization,  there 
forming  some  of  the  strangest  anomalies  discoverable  in 
history. 

The  development  of  successions  in  antiquity  having 
thus  been  traced,  some  consideration  is  due  to  the  long 
period  succeeding  the  downfall  of  ancient  civilization, 
which  is  termed  the  Middle  Ages.  In  the  later  stages  of 
this  period  applied  to  European  history,  primogeniture  is 
the  feature  which  characterizes  the  descent  of  property 
under  the  feudal  system,  and  the  practice  of  entailing 
estates  is  another  peculiarity  unknown  in  its  extreme 
features  alike  to  the  ancient  and  to  the  modern  civiliza- 
tion. The  student  of  social  progress  will  have  little 
doubt  that  both  these  customs  formulated  into  laws  were 
gradual  transformations  of  the  ancient  idea  of  family  and 
tribal  government,  but  the  exact  nature  of  that  transfor- 
mation has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion.  By  the 
principle  of  primogeniture  the  eldest  son  succeeds  to  all 


2l6  KING   MAMMON. 

land  at  the  death  of  the  father,  the  other  children  inherit- 
ing merely  their  shares  of  personal  property.  Under  the 
ancient  system  all  sons  were  supposed  to  have  an  equal 
right  in  the  family  wealth,  and  all  members  of  the  gens 
an  equal  right  in  the  tribal  possession  of  land.  At  first 
there  appears  no  connection  between  these  principles  of 
the  ancient  family  and  primogeniture,  the  latter  appear- 
ing radically  and  strangely  different,  but  the  transition 
may  be  indicated. 

In  all  ancient  history  and  in  all  the  customs  of  savage 
tribes,  leadership,  when  hereditary,  as  it  invariably  was 
in  the  family,  went  first  to  the  eldest  son.  In  the  exist- 
ence of  savages  and  barbarians,  where  the  normal  con- 
dition is  war,  leadership  is  everything  and  property  noth- 
ing. In  our  modern  industrial  civilization,  leadership  is 
nothing  and  property  everything  in  the  normal  condition 
of  peace.  Hence  we  fail  to  comprehend  the  spirit  of  the 
past  on  account  of  our  associations  in  the  present.  When 
the  roving  barbarians  whose  descendants  now  inhabit 
western  Europe  swept  over  that  territory,  conquering  the 
earlier  inhabitants  and  subjecting  them  to  feudal  rule,  it 
is  evident  that  they  were  aggregations  of  tribes  very 
similar  to  those  formed  among  the  Iroquois,  who  had 
perfected  governmental  relations  to  the  extent  of  forming 
a  confederacy  of  large  tribes,  each  composed  of  numerous 
smaller  organizations.  These  European  barbarians  had 
advanced  beyond  the  Iroquois  in  the  arts,  but  their  govern- 
ment was  still  similar,  for  the  researches  in  early  German 
history  indicate  a  condition  like  what  has  already  been 
described  as  existing  in  Greece  and  Rome.  During  their 
period  of  migration,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  they 
were  constantly  marching  and  fighting.  Even  after  they 
had  settled  upon  the  conquered  lands  and  apportioned 
them  among  the  little  tribes  or  gentes  and  the  greater 
tribes  forming  their  organization,  the  constant  warfare 


KING   MAMMON.  2 1/ 

was  still  maintained,  and  the  traditional  emblem  of  the 
feudal  ages  to  this  day  is  a  warrior  cased  in  iron  armor 
and  strutting  to  battle  with  sword  in  hand. 

In  such  a  condition  of  society,  leadership  and  organiza- 
tion become  so  prominent  as  to  subordinate  everything 
else,  including  wealth.  We  have  only  to  imagine  an  in- 
vasion or  a  civil  war  in  the  United  States,  to  realize  what 
a  vast  change  the  militant  spirit  and  the  necessity  of  fight- 
ing effects.  To  conquer  the  invaded  territory  it  was 
necessary  for  the  feudal  tribes  to  organize  and  unite  under 
a  military  system  that  would  enable  them  to  join  forces 
against  their  enemies.  Out  of  this  necessity  must  have 
developed  the  feudal  system  under  which  every  man 
except  the  chief  of  the  aggregated  tribes  had  a  superior, 
and  every  man  except  the  merely  subordinate  members 
of  the  family  unit  in  this  aggregation  had  inferiors.  The 
nature  of  the  feudal  organization  was  identical  with  that 
of  a  modern  army,  and  it  was  organized  for  the  same 
purpose.  There  were  a  chief  and  sub-chiefs  like  the  gen- 
eral and  his  colonels,  with  duties  that  the  inferior  must 
perform  at  the  command  of  the  superior,  and  the  duty  of 
protection  on  the  part  of  the  chief  to  those  under  him. 
If  we  can  imagine  the  tribes  of  the  Iroquois  in  North 
America  organizing  and  marching  southward  to  conquer 
the  Aztecs  or  to  dispossess  other  Indian  nations,  the 
necessities  of  such  a  movement  would  inevitably  lead  to 
a  feudal  system. 

The  wealth  of  the  feudal  system  still  remained  com- 
munal ;  but  to  maintain  their  military  organization  it  was 
necessary  that  the  superior  should  direct  the  selection  of 
his  subordinates,  to  secure  prompt  obedience  as  in  the 
modern  army.  Accordingly,  in  the  distribution  of  the 
conquered  lands,  the  chief — whether  styled  count,  mar- 
quis, or  duke — at  the  head  of  a  confederacy  was  em- 
powered to  allot  feudal  land  tenures  among  his  subordin- 


2l8  KING   MAMMON. 

ates,  representing  in  his  own  powers  the  entire  people, 
and  requiring  duties  from  the  subordinate  officers,  who 
represented  in  a  similar  way  the  people  of  their  own 
smaller  tribes  as  a  colonel  represents  a  regiment.  The 
supreme  leader  was  not  regarded  as  the  owner  of  the 
territory  occupied  by  the  confederacy,  however,  any 
more  than  the  queen  of  England  is  now  really  believed 
to  be  the  actual  owner  of  English  lands  ;  but  in  his  posi- 
tion as  leader  he  represented  the  rights  of  the  entire 
people. 

Accordingly  the  lands  were  distributed  to  the  tribal 
chiefs  as  representatives  of  their  clans,  and  at  first  they 
held  at  the  pleasure  of  the  superior  and  were  required  to 
perform  military  duty  at  his  command.  This  was  all 
that  was  ever  contemplated  by  the  organizers  of  the  feudal 
system,  but  the  descendants  of  the  early  barbarians  found 
changed  conditions,  and  the  feudal  system  changed  with 
them.  Later  on  the  feudal  tenures  were  held  for  life,  and 
the  family  principle  of  the  eldest  son's  succession  as  fam- 
ily leader  was  applied  to  the  command  of  the  tribe,  from 
which  it  has  been  extended  to  descent  in  all  the  royal 
families  of  Europe.  As  the  condition  of  Ishmaelitish  war 
gave  way  to  the  arts  of  peace  and  the  development  of 
wealth,  the  condition  which  caused  the  development 
of  the  feudal  system  led  to  another  which  caused  its 
decay.  Feudalism  was  made  by  war  and  rapine  ;  it  was 
unmade  by  peace  and  industry.  Instead  of  military 
duties,  therefore,  the  subordinate  chieftain,  when  war 
partially  ceased,  was  required  to  pay  to  his  superior  a 
part  of  the  produce  of  the  land  occupied  by  his  clan,  or  a 
sum  of  money  as  rent  for  its  use.  No  less  than  eighty 
different  forms  of  feudal  rents  have  been  enumerated, 
from  a  merely  nominal  value  to  one  nearly  equal  to  that 
of  the  land  itself.  This  change  in  the  nature  of  the  ser- 
vices rendered  for  feudal  tenures  was  coincident  with  a 


KING   MAMMON. 

change  going  on  among  the  people.  They  were  aban- 
doning constant  warfare  for  the  arts  of  peace.  Their 
castles  on  the  crags  were  gradually  deserted  that  more 
convenient  locations  for  industrial  pursuits  might  be  oc- 
cupied. Murder  and  rapine,  as  the  most  honorable  pur- 
suits in  which  gentlemen  could  engage,  according  to  the 
feudal  code  of  ethics,  gradually  seemed  a  trifle  less  hon- 
orable in  their  estimation.  Frequent  association  between 
adjacent  clans  slowly  removed  that  brutal  spirit  univer- 
sally characteristic  of  undeveloped  human  beings,  which 
leads  man  to  hate  every  idea  different  from  his  own 
notions,  and  detest  every  other  human  being  not  like 
him,  or  not  of  his  own  contemptibly  insignificant  little 
political  and  religious  clan. 

In  a  word,  the  people  ceased  fighting  to  some  extent 
and  went  to  work.  Out  of  this  work  arose  wealth,  and 
out  of  the  wealth  cam£  the  changed  nature  of  their  feudal 
leaders.  In  war  they  were  generals.  In  peace  they 
became  owners.  The  whole  social  system  was  in  a  state 
of  rapid  transition  when  the  industrial  arts  were  ex- 
changed for  the  arts  of  war,  and  private  rights  to  wealth 
were  slowly  substituted,  by  divisions  within  the  families 
and  the  clans,  for  the  earlier  communal  system.  When, 
therefore,  the  idea  of  communal  property  was  being 
abandoned  everywhere,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  com- 
munal ownership  by  the  whole  people  in  a  district  gov- 
erned by  a  chief  should  be  gradually  transformed  into  an 
ownership  by  the  chief  personally  and  absolutely.  When 
comparative  peace  superseded  constant  war,  leadership 
became  nothing  and  ownership  everything ;  hence  we 
find  the  man  who  entered  the  feudal  system  at  its  be- 
ginning as  an  officer  in  command,  coming  out  of  it  in  the 
form  of  his  descendant  at  the  close  with  the  rights  of  an 
owner.  In  the  transition  from  common  to  private 
ownership  every  man  acquired  a  private  right  in  what  he 


220  KING   MAMMON. 

controlled,  and  the  feudal  leaders  were  no  exceptions  to 
the  general  rule. 

During  this  transition  the  right  of  the  feudal  proprietor, 
at  first  held  at  the  pleasure  of  his  superior  and  afterwards 
for  life,  became  eventually  hereditary.  From  rendering 
merely  military  service  at  first,  he  finally  paid  rent.  As 
the  desire  for  leadership  gave  way  to  the  universal  desire 
for  property,  he  was  invested  with  a  right  of  naming  a 
successor  in  the  ownership  of  wealth,  the  privilege  being 
gradually  extended  till  at  the  present  time  in  England, 
where  the  change  from  the  feudal  system  has  been  most 
gradual,  the  power  of  making  bequests  is  unrestricted. 

Out  of  the  feudal  system  developed  the  theory  and 
practice  of  entail,  which  under  the  modern  conception  of 
human  rights  appears  one  of  the  strangest  customs  that 
ever  existed.  Theoretically,  under  its  power  the  man  in 
control  of  a  tract  of  land  could  originally  establish  its 
continued  possession  in  the  hands  of  his  natural  succes- 
sors in  any  line  of  descent,  usually  bestowing  it  on  the 
eldest  sons  of  the  family,  thus  securing  a  control  of  it 
over  unborn  generations  to  perpetuity.  The  successive 
descendants  had  the  right  of  occupancy  and  use,  but 
were  merely  tenants  and  could  neither  sell  the  land,  mort- 
gage it,  nor  give  it  away,  nor  at  death  do  anything  but 
abandon  it  and  allow  the  next  successor  to  take  his  place. 
Regarded  as  wealth,  the  land  under  this  entail  remained 
the  property  of  the  dead  man,  and  his  descendants  in 
the  established  line  were  tenants  for  life,  no  other  peo- 
ple on  the  face  of  the  earth  having  any  rights  whatever 
in  its  use. 

Entail  arose  out  of  the  military  relations  between  sup- 
perior  and  subordinate  in  the  feudal  system.  The  suc- 
cession to  the  possession  of  a  feud  became  a  very  impor- 
tant matter  for  determination  under  that  system,  and  tem- 
porary appointments  by  the  superior  soon  became  changed 


KING   MAMMON.  221 

by  collusion  between  superior  and  inferior  into  the 
principle  that  the  direct  line  of  eldest  males  should  suc- 
ceed to  the  powers.  By  grants  from  the  superior  power, 
theoretically  representing  the  community,  the  right  of 
succession  devolved  on  an  established  line  of  heirs. 
Originally  this  was  intended  to  confer  merely  the  position 
of  leader,  but  by  the  transition  from  communal  to  private 
rights,  the  privilege  of  succession  thus  engrafted  upon  the 
community  became  the  absolute  control  of  wealth.  Apply- 
ing to  wealth  a  custom  that  had  been  applied  originally 
to  mere  military  organization,  the  possessors  of  landed 
estates  who  emerged  from  the  feudal  system  proceeded 
to  send  them  down  to  succeeding  generations  bound  un- 
der one  of  the  most  absurd  methods  that  human  ingenuity 
ever  contrived.  The  result  of  entails  is  described  in  the 
following  extract  from  Lord  Bacon,  which  appears  also 
in  Blackstone's  ''  Commentaries  :  " 

"Children  grew  disobedient  when  they  knew  they  could 
not  be  set  aside  ;  farmers  were  ousted  of  their  leases  made 
by  tenants  in  tail,  for,  if  such  leases  had  been  valid, 
then  under  color  of  long  leases  the  issue  might  have  been 
virtually  disinherited ;  creditors  were  defrauded  of  their 
debts,  for,  if  a  tenant  in  tail  could  have  charged  his  estate 
with  their  payment,  he  might  also  have  defeated  his  issue 
by  mortgaging  it  for  as  much  as  it  is  worth  :  innumerable 
latent  entails  were  produced  to  deprive  purchasers  of  the 
lands  they  had  fairly  bought ;  of  suits  in  consequence  of 
which  our  ancient  books  are  full ;  and  treasons  were  en- 
couraged, as  estates  tail  were  not  liable  to  forfeiture 
longer  than  for  the  tenant's  life.  So  that  they  were  justly 
branded  as  the  source  of  new  contentions,  and  mischiefs 
unknown  to  common  law  ;  and  almost  universally  con- 
sidered as  the  common  grievance  of  the  realm.  But  as 
the  nobility  were  always  fond  of  this  statute,  because  it 
preserved  their  family  estates  from  forfeiture,  there  was 
little  hope  of  procuring  a  repeal  by  the  legislature,  and, 
therefore,  by  the  contrivance  of  an  active  and  politic  prince 
a  method  was  devised  to  evade  it." 


222  KING   MAMMON. 

Entail  by  will  of  the  decedent,  as  it  existed  for  many 
years  succeeding  the  feudal  system,  was  the  trans- 
fer of  a  right,  originally  supposed  to  belong  to  the  com- 
munity, to  an  individual,  by  which  he  was  enabled  to 
dictate  from  another  world  the  disposition  of  the  estate  he 
once  occupied  on  earth.  The  injustice  of  thus  restrain- 
ing the  natural  rights  of  the  living  by  the  arbitrary  decrees 
of  the  dead,  led  to  so  much  trouble  and  produced  so  much 
palpable  unfairness  to  all  affected  by  the  condition  of  the 
entailed  estate,  that  the  severity  of  the  principle  is  now 
modified  to  such  an  extent,  even  in  conservative  England, 
that  a  decedent  cannot  generally  tie  an  estate  with  such 
restrictions  for  a  longer  period  than  the  lives  of  persons 
in  existence  at  his  death  and  for  twenty-one  years  there- 
after, which  is  surely  still  too  great  a  power  if  we  con- 
cede that  a  man  ought  to  be  willing  to  loosen  his  hold  on 
this  world  and  let  other  people  regulate  its  affairs  when 
he  can  no  longer  live  in  it.  Entail  once  existed  in  nearly 
all  parts  of  Europe,  but  its  last  traces  survive  in  English 
laws. 

France  abolished  entail  by  the  Code  Napoleon,  substitu- 
ting a  species  of  entail  by  the  state,  which  distributes 
nearly  all  landed  estates  equally  among  the  children,  re- 
gardless of  wills,  and  has  thus  subdivided  the  lands  of  that 
nation  into  absurdly  small  tracts.  Spain  rid  herself  of 
the  incubus  by  an  act  of  the  Cortez.  Entail  was  acknowl- 
edged in  the  early  settlement  of  the  United  States,  but 
gave  way  under  the  attacks  of  men  like  Jefferson,  along 
with  much  other  tyranny,  before  the  advancing  thought  of 
our  early  national  existence.  Primogeniture,  as  a  fossilized 
specimen  of  antiquity,  still  clings  to  the  English  laws  in 
a  provision  for  the  succession  of  the  eldest  son  to  land 
when  the  decedent  fails  to  make  a  will.  There  is  no 
longer  any  reason  for  its  existence  except  the  absurd  con- 
servatism of  the  English  people.  In  the  United  States 


KING   MAMMON.  223 

primogeniture  has  been  abolished  in  all  parts  of  the 
country.  The  English  system  of  inheritance,  which  now 
applies  only  to  cases  of  intestacy,  is  merely  a  survival  of 
the  ancient  family  idea  of  succession  to  leadership  among 
savages,  giving  preference  to  males  and  preference  to  age 
among  direct  descendants. 

At  one  time,  under  its  rules,  the  ancestor  never  could 
inherit  by  any  possibility  from  his  descendant,  but  the 
law  has  been  changed  so  that  now  parents  are  not  ex- 
cluded by  collaterals.  Side  by  side  with  this  relic  of  an- 
cient succession  to  power,  exists  a  survival  of  the  real  an- 
cient succession  to  wealth  in  the  custom  of  gavelkind,  by 
which,  in  a  limited  district,  the  old  tribal  custom, unaffected 
by  military  organization,  has  descended  to  the  present  in 
the  form  of  an  absolutely  equal  division  of  wealth  among 
sons.  The  most  prominent  features  of  the  feudal  system 
of  succession  comprised  in  primogeniture  and  entail  have 
disappeared  from  Europe  only  in  recent  years,  Scotland 
abandoning  them  since  1847,  when  half  the  land  of  that 
country  was  entailed,  Portugal  abolishing  an  inalienable 
right  of  primogeniture  for  three  generations  in  1863,  and 
Sweden  and  Denmark  rescinding  such  laws  in  1869.  Some 
traces  of  the'  custom  still  cling  to  Germany,  but  they  are 
disappearing. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  review  of  successions,  that  in  all 
parts  of  the  world,  so  far  as  the  record  is  ascertainable, 
the  development  has  been  nearly  the  same.  Social  organ- 
ization from  the  chaos  of  a  brutally  savage  existence  first 
appeared  in  the  form  of  a  family  group  in  which  the  sex- 
ual relations  were  not  restricted  by  modern  ideas  of  mar- 
riage, conjugal  fidelity,  and  consanguinity.  In  that  con- 
dition every  human  being  has,  theoretically,  one  mother 
and  many  fathers.  Every  woman  has  many  husbands, 
and  every  man  many  wives.  All  the  tribal  people  of 
approximately  the  same  age  are  brothers  and  sisters,  and, 


224  KING   MAMMON. 

relationship  with  the  father  being  indeterminate,  descent 
is  in  the  female  line. 

The  organization  of  the  gens  or  family  tribe  is  afterwards 
effected  with  the  requirement  of  external  marriage,  and 
as  all  females  thus  leave  the  tribe  in  which  they  are  born, 
descent  is  traced  exclusively  through  males,  although 
under  such  relations  of  the  sexes  paternity  is  necessarily 
a  fiction.  In  all  these  early  transitions,  but  little  wealth 
existed,  except  in  the  possession  of  land  and  the  use  of  its 
natural  products.  The  succession  to  personal  effects  was 
equally  in  the  family,  and  the  possession  of  land  was  always 
equally  in  the  little  tribe  of  connected  families.  Families 
and  clans  multiplied  and  were  aggregated  into  confeder- 
acies, which  formed  the  basis  of  the  nations  that  have 
since  developed  from  them. 

Wealth  in  early  society  was  extremely  limited  and  in- 
variably communal.  No  such  thing  as  a  private  and  ex- 
clusive right  of  possession  and  transfer  at  death  existed. 
Wills  were  first  used  to  provide  an  artificial  succession  to 
the  office  of  leader  when  the  natural  succession  failed,  and 
were  executed  before  the  death  of  the  testator,  whose  act 
was  essentially  the  abdication  of  his  throne. l  The  produc- 
tion of  wealth  due  to  the  industrial  arts  and  the  cessation  of 
war  transformed  society  by  lessening  the  importance  of 
the  mere  leader  and  exaggerating  the  powers  of  the  owner. 
Under  the  development  of  wealth  and  private  ownership, 
leaders  were  gradually  transformed  into  owners,  and  the 

1  Wills  were  at  first  oral,  as  were  also  gifts  of  lands,  and  were  only 
morally  binding  on  the  survivors.  Origen  and  other  fathers  of  the  early 
Church  credited  Noah  with  having  made  a  will,  and  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury the  Bishop  of  Brescia  declared  all  those  heretical  who  denied 
Noah's  division  of  the  world  to  his  three  sons  by  will.  The  oldest 
known  wills  are  those  of  Egypt.  Both  oral  and  written  wills  not  infre- 
quently contained  imprecations  on  those  who  should  neglect  them. 

The  earliest  written  will  in  existence  is  that  of  Sennacherib,  which 
was  found  in  the  royal  library  of  Koyunjik. —  Westminister  Review. 


KING   MAMMON.  225 

will,  from  a  method  of  succeeding  to  a  position  implying 
powers  and  duties  without  ownership,  became  transformed 
into  its  modern  form  of  a  gift  conveying  wealth  and  ex- 
ecuted after  the  death  of  the  testator.  Private  ownership 
has  in  modern  civilization  superseded  the  ancient  com- 
munism of  the  clan,  and  the  old  doctrine  of  an  absolutely 
equal  succession  of  male  heirs,  holding  the  women  as  de- 
pendents, has  given  way  to  the  modern  idea  of  permitting 
the  testator  to  distribute  his  wealth  at  his  own  pleasure 
when  he  dies,  although  the  privilege  is  restricted  to  some 
extent  in  nearly  every  part  of  the  world,  notably  under 
the  Mohammedan  law  and  the  Code  Napoleon,  which 
affects  the  laws  of  the  State  of  Louisiana  in  this  country. 

The  existence  of  primogeniture  applied  to  wealth  was 
a  variation  from  the  regular  development  in  successions, 
and  arose  first  out  of  the  military  organization  of  the 
clans  for  conquest,  which  exaggerated  the  power  of 
leaders,  and  afterwards  out  of  the  development  of  wealth 
and  private  ownership,  which  left  those  leaders,  when  the 
feudal  system  decayed,  in  absolute  possession  of  the  lands 
which  they  had  originally  merely  governed  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  their  people,  and  which  they  transmitted  as 
wealth  in  succeeding  years  under  the  ancient  theory  of 
leader-succession.  The  condition  of  Mexico  and  the 
South  American  countries,  in  which  there  exists  a  prepon- 
derating element  of  the  native  Indian  races,  furnishes  in 
the  present  a  tolerably  correct  picture  of  the  feudal  sys- 
tem after  military  service  gave  way  to  the  payments  of 
fees.  It  is  true  that  in  material  improvements  these  so- 
cieties are  vastly  in  advance  of  the  feudatories  of  Europe. 
The  people  have  Winchester  rifles  and  Catling  guns  in- 
stead of  swords  and  armor,  but  except  in  these  mere 
accessories  their  social  life  and  government  are  of  the  mid- 
dle ages.  The  latter  is  a  military  despotism,  democratic 
only  in  form,  and  characterized  by  all  the  violence,  the 
15 


226  KING   MAMMON. 

tyranny,  the  cruelty,  the  instability,  the  dishonesty,  and 
the  constant  warfare  that  were  striking  features  of  Europ- 
ean life  in  its  barbaric  period.  In  spite  of  governmental 
forms,  the  government  officials  of  these  countries  are 
generals  and  the  common  people  are  serfs,  a  condition 
which  merely  illustrates  the  truth  that  it  requires  a  good 
people  to  make  a  good  government,  and  that  men  must 
be  civilized  before  their  institutions. 

The  history  of  successions  since  the  development  of 
private  ownership,  has  been  a  constant  struggle  between 
the  supposed  rights  of  the  children  or  other  heirs  to  suc- 
ceed absolutely  to  the  wealth  of  the  ancestor,  and  the 
asserted  right  of  the  owner  to  control  the  same  wealth  up 
to  the  last  moment  of  his  existence  and  to  distribute  it 
among  successors  named  by  himself  to  take  possession 
after  his  death.  On  the  one  hand,  the  right  of  inherit- 
ance is  urged  ;  on  the  other,  the  right  of  making  bequests. 
At  the  present  time,  the  dead  man  is  king^but  there  are 
many  social  signs  that  a  more  rational  and  equitable 
system  of  succession  than  any  that  has  prevailed  since 
the  existence  of  private  ownership  will  now  develop. 
The  exact  line  of  future  progress  cannot  easily  be  indi- 
cated, but  it  seems  probable  that  in  many  countries  the 
development  of  future  successions  will  be  through  a 
co'nstantly  increasing  taxation  of  inheritances  and  be- 
quests, till  eventually  the  principle  of  control  by  the 
whole  people  and  not  by  either  the  decedent  or  his  des- 
cendants will  be  recognized  in  some  form  similar  to  the 
plans  advocated  in  these  pages.1  One  thing  is  certain  : 

1  The  French  Chamber  of  Deputies,  after  four  weeks'  debate,  recently 
adopted  an  inheritance  tax  bill.  In  some  cases  it  takes  20  per  cent  of 
an  inheritance.  This  is  only  in  cases  where  the  inheritance  is  a  gift. 
Lineal  descendants  get  their  estates  by  paying  from  i#  to  4  per  cent 
of  the  amount  inherited.  The  lowest  rate  is  on  estates  of  $2,000  or 
less.  When  a  husband  inherits  from  his  wife,  or  a  wife  from  her  hus- 
band, the  tax  is  9  per  cent  on  fortunes  of  more  than  $400,000,  with  re- 
duced rates  for  small  estates.  If  a  brother  inherits  from  a  sister,  or  a 


KING   MAMMON.  22? 

neither  the  principle  of  successions  nor  any  other  human 
institution  has  reached  its  final  development.  There 
will  be  further  changes  to  make  our  laws  conform  more 
perfectly  with  the  altered  condition  of  society,  and  we 
have  only  to  determine  what  those  changes  shall  be. 
The  things  we  consider  right  to-day,  we  denounce  as 
wrongs  to-morrow,  and  all  laws  and  other  social  insti- 
tutions must  conform  to  our  progressive  morality.  Those 
who  would  hopefully  regard  the  future  can  do  no  better 
than  to  consider  the  words  of  a  recent  writer^  whose  pa- 
tient scientific  investigation  of  early  laws  and  customs 
sheds  much  light  upon  the  real  nature  and  progress  of 
society  : 

"  Since  the  advent  of  civilization  the  outgrowth  of  prop- 
erty has  been  so  immense,  its  forms  so  diversified,  its 
uses  so  expanding,  and  its  management  so  intelligent 
in  the  interests  of  its  owners,  that  it  has  become  on  the 
part  of  the  people  an  unmanageable  power.  The  human 
mind  stands  bewildered  in  the  presence  of  its  own  crea- 
tion. The  time  will  come,  nevertheless,  when  human 
intelligence  will  rise  to  the  mastery  over  property,  and 
define  the  relations  of  the  state  to  the  property  it  protects 
as  well  as  the  obligations  and  the  limits  of  the  rights  of 
owners.  The  interests  of  society  are  paramount  to  in- 
dividual interests,  and  the  two  must  be  brought  into  just 
and  harmonious  relations.  A  mere  property  career  is 
not  the  final  destiny  of  mankind,  if  progress  is  to  be  the 
law  of  the  future  as  it  has  been  of  the  past.  The  time 
which  has  passed  away  since  civilization  began  is  but  a 
fragment  of  the  past  duration  of  man's  existence,  and 
but  a  fragment  of  the  ages  yet  to  come.  The  dissolution 
of  society  bids  fair  to  become  the  termination  of  a  career 
of  which  property  is  the  end  and  aim  ;  because  such  a 

sister  from  a  brother,  the  state  claims  14  per  cent.  An  uncle  or  a 
nephew  has  to  pay  16  per  cent.  Very  distant  relatives,  strangers,  ec- 
clesiastical or  charitable  institutions  are  required  to  part  with  20  per  cent. 
3~"The  power  of  free  testamentary  disposition  implies  the  latitude 
ever  given  in  the  history  of  the  world  to  the  volition  or  caprice  of  the 
individual."  —  HENRY  SUMNER  MAINE. 


(7 


228  KING   MAMMON. 

career  contains  the  elements  of  self-destruction.  Demo- 
cracy in  government,  brotherhood  in  society,  equality  in 
rights  and  privileges,  and  universal  education,  fore- 
shadow the  next  higher  plane  of  society  to  which  expe- 
rience, intelligence,  and  knowledge  are  steadily  tending. " 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
KING  MAMMON'S  NIGHTMARE. 

Socialism,  communism,  and  anarchism  are  rife  throughout  Europe. 
It  may  be  that  a  universal  and  inevitable  change  of  the  social  frame  is  at 
hand.  But  that  only  enhances  the  gravity  of  the  crisis  in  England,  and 
makes  it  more  necessary,  if  possible,  to  have  wisdom,  not  the  reckless  ma- 
lignity of  factions  or  revolutionary  fanaticism  at  the  helm. 

— GOLDWIN  SMITH. 

The  struggle  between  Socialism  and  our  Government  reminds  me  of  the 
fable  of  the  Goblin  and  the  Peasant.  A  Peasant  had  in  his  hiit  a  Goblin 
who  did  him  no  harm,  and  did  him  even  much  good ;  but  he  hated  him 
and  wanted  to  drive  him  out  or  destroy  him.  He  chased  him,  he  hit  at 
him,  biit  instead  of  breaking  the  GoblhCs  skttll,  he  broke  his  own  furniture. 
At  last,  in  his  blind  fury,  the  Peasant  set  fire  to  his  house,  in  the  hope  to 
burn  and  so  surely  to  kill  his  enemy.  The  hut  became  a  heap  of  ashes,  and 
when  he  left  it  in  his  cart,  chuckling  at  the  thought  of  having  at  last  got 
rid  of  his  enemy,  he  discovered  the  Goblin  sitting  behind  him  and  laughing 
in  his  sleeves,  quite  happy  and  quite  comfortable. — W.LlEBKNECHT/raafcr 
of  the  German  Socialists. 

THE  restriction  of  bequests  and  inheritance  advocated  in 
these  pages  will  be  denounced  by  conservatives  under 
the  contemptuous  epithet  of  "socialistic  notions,"  es- 
pecially by  those  who  have  not  made  a  careful  study  of 
social  phenomena.  On  the  other  hand,  the  extreme 
radicals  who  are  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  the  com- 
plete destruction  of  competition  and  private  ownership 
will  also  sneer  at  the  same  propositions,  because  they 
will  not  accomplish  the  changes  socialists  hope  for. 
Whether  an  attack  on  wealth  heredity  is  socialistic  or 
not  depends  upon  the  real  nature  of  socialism ;  and  be- 


KING  MAMMON.  229 

fore  a  decision  is  rendered  on  that  point,  it  is  well  to  in- 
vestigate briefly  a  movement  among  the  people  to  which 
the  attention  of  observant  thinkers  in  all  parts  of  the  civ- 
ilized world  has  recently  been  directed.  We  shall  obtain 
our  definition  of  socialism  at  the  end  of  our  inquiry  in- 
stead of  at  the  beginning. 

A  general  conception  of  socialistic  ideals  may  be  gained 
from  a  study  of  the  air-castles  constructed  by  able  writers 
of  the  past  and  present,  whose  broad  conceptions  of 
human  life  and  duty  enabled  them  to  evolve  from  their 
own  minds  what  seemed  to  them  a  happier  condition 
for  humanity  than  the  unequal  and  relentless  struggle  of 
competition,  with  its  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty,  its 
destitution  surrounding  abundance,  audits  frequent  waste 
of  human  effort  and  life  sustenance  in  the  presence  of 
starvation.  Socialistic  pictures  of  the  "kind  described  by 
Edward  Bellamy  in  Looking  Backward  are  older  than 
Christianity,  and  have  been  traced  by  some  writers  as  far 
back  into  ancient  history  as  the  existence  of  Phileas  of 
Chalcedon,  six  centuries  before  the  Christian  era.  Plato's 
Republic  is  the  earliest  socialistic  writing  that  is  easily 
accessible.  These  features  of  the  work  were  probably 
written  to  show  the  philosopher's  idea  of  a  perfect  govern- 
ment, and  they  describe  a  communal  life  in  which  neither 
rich  nor  poor  exist,  and  where  there  is  a  perfect  equality 
of  careers.  In  some  respects  the  mind  of  Plato  was  far 
in  advance  of  his  time  in  the  conception  of  social  insti- 
tutions, but  in  others  he  was  bound  by  the  convictions 
common  to  that  period.  In  his  ideal  community  he  pro^- 
vided  munificently  for  public  education  and  gave  to 
woman  absolute  freedom  to  enter  all  kinds  of  occupa- 
tions, a  liberty  which  she  has  not  yet  acquired;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  established  a  communal  marriage  re- 
lation of  the  sexes,  toward  which  society  is  making  no 
approach,  and  which  has  really  been  left  far  behind  us 


230  KING   MAMMON. 

among  other  characteristics  of  an  almost  purely  animal 
existence.  In  Plato's  day  women  were  property,  and  as 
all  property  was  to  be  communal  under  his  system,  it 
would  have  been  illogical,  under  that  idea,  to  permit  any 
monopoly  in  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  the  female  sex. 
The  children  of  his  ideal  republic  were  under  charge  of 
the  state,  there  was  no  family  organization,  and  the  in- 
crease of  population  was  controlled  by  restricting  births. 

Sir  Thomas  More,  Lord  Chancellor  of  England  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  about  four  hundred  years  ago,  an- 
nounced the  discovery  of  his  "  island  of  Utopia,  which 
conteyneth  in  breadthe  in  the  middel  parte  of  it  (for  there 
it  is  brodest),  CC  miles."  Since  then  "  Utopian  "  has  be- 
come a  word  in  frequent  use  to  condemn  a  proposition 
as  chimerical ;  but  there  were  many  things  in  the  wonder- 
ful imaginary  island  created  by  Sir  Thomas,  that,  al- 
though not  then  in  existence,  have  since  become  verities 
by  the  progress  which  his  prophetic  mind  foresaw.  Like 
the  earlier  philosopher's  republic,  Utopia  had  an  ideal 
government  in  which  that  bugbear  of  the  early  socialists, 
"the  rich  and  the  poor,"  was  completely  destroyed,  and 
under  which  the  people  lived  comfortable,  contented,  and 
happy  in  the  equal  possession  of  wealth  and  the  equal 
division  of  labor. 

The  Utopia  was  written  in  Latin,  but  was  translated  into 
English  of  the  style  quoted  here  shortly  after  its  original 
publication.  Sir  Thomas  More  was  a  man  of  great 
breadth  of  intellect  and  generous  emotions,  so  he  could 
not  help  being  dissatisfied  with  the  barbarous  age  in 
which  he  lived.  His  picture  of  Utopia  is  the  enunciation 
of  that  dissatisfaction  expressed  as  plainly  as  the  author 
dared  to  write  in  that  period  of  intolerance  and  brutality. 
In  describing  Utopia,  More  satirized  England.  It  was  a 
happy  island,  where  all  were  comfortable  without  being 
either  rich  or  poor.  All  shared  wealth  alike,  and  there  was 


KING   MAMMON.  231 

no  inducement  for  sordid  crime  and  no  severe  laws. 
The  idler  was  controlled  by  a  provision  that  "  no  meat 
be  given  him  until  he  have  wrought  out  his  forenoon's 
task."  The  social  conditions  were  well  regulated,  for 
"there  be  neither  wine  taverns,  nor  ale  vaults,  nor  any 
occasion  of  vice  or  wickedness.  A  commonwealth  is 
nothing  else  but  a  great  household." 

The  contempt  for  wealth  was  so  great  that  "whomso- 
ever for  any  offence  be  infamed,  by  their  ears  hang  rings 
of  gold,  upon  their  fingers  they  wear  rings  of  gold,  and 
around  their  necks  they  wear  chains  of  gold,"  all  these 
being  signs  of  infamy.  Gems  and  precious  stones  in 
Utopia  were  mere  toys  for  children  to  play  with,  "so 
when  a  little  more  grown  in  years  and  discretion,  per- 
ceiving that  none  but  children  do  wear  such  toys  and 
trifles,  they  lay  them  away  of  their  own  shamefacedness, 
even  as  our  children,  when  they  wax  big,  do  cast  away 
puppets.  Children  that  had  cast  away  their  pearls  and 
precious  stones,  when  they  saw  the  like  sticking  upon  am- 
bassador's caps,  dig  and  push  their  mothers  under  the  sides 
saying,  '  Look,  how  great  a  lubber  doth  yet  wear  pearls 
and  precious  stones."1 

Slavery  existed  in  Utopia  as  a  punishment  for  crime, 
and  as  a  condition  in  which  those  who  came  to  the  island 
from  other  countries  were  placed  during  voluntary  resi- 
dence. Those  who  were  sick  of  incurable  diseases  were 
encouraged  to  commit  suicide,  or  to  be  killed  by  their 
own  consent,  although  they  "caused  none  to  die  against 
his  will."  In  social  and  industrial  economy,  particularly 
in  suggesting  the  subdivision  of  labor  as  now  actually 
applied  in  all  great  manufacturing  establishments,  the 
mind  of  Sir  Thomas  More  was  centuries  in  advance  of 
the  era  in  which  he  lived.  In  a  barbarous  age,  under 
the  half-savage  government  of  a  monarch  who  eventually 
beheaded  More  because  his  conscience  would  not  permit 


232  KING   MAMMON. 

him  to  sanction  all  the  king's  ambitious  and  lascivious 
desires,  this  philosopher  of  a  period  when  Indian  tribes 
were  the  only  inhabitants  of  America,  was  able  to  see 
far  enough  into  the  moral  future  of  the  race  to  understand 
that  it  is  better  to  prevent  crime  by  education  and  early 
training  than  to  punish  it  after  the  evil  condition  exists,  a 
sentiment  that  is  only  understood  by  a  portion  of  the 
civilized  human  race  at  the  present  time.  At  a  time  when 
nations  were  ready  to  go  to  war  under  any  pretext,  how- 
ever unjust,  he  was  able  to  announce  for  the  Utopia  of 
the  future,  which  everybody  can  now  see,  a  social  condi- 
tion wherein  war  is  never  entered  on  except  for  some 
gross  injury,  and  the  glory  of  a  general  is  in  proportion, 
not  to  the  number  but  the  fewness  of  the  enemies  whom 
he  slays  in  gaining  a  victory.  Best  of  all,  he  could  see  in 
the  future,  pictured  in  the  mind  of  every  good  and  great 
man,  the  time,  not  yet  reached  by  humanity  even  in  this 
country  as  a  perfect  conception,  when  no  man  ought  to 
be  punished  for  his  religion,  for  "a  man  cannot  make 
himself  believe  anything  he  pleases."  It  is  said  that  Sir 
Thomas  preached  better  than  he  practiced  in  the  matter 
of  religious  toleration,  for  he  was  an  ardent  Roman 
Catholic  to  whom  the  newly-born  Protestant  faith  was 
not  reverence  to  the  God  whom  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  pro- 
tect ;  but,  whether  consistent  or  inconsistent,  his  mind 
was  like  a  great  electric  search-light  shining  among  a 
group  of  tallow-dips.  Its  rays  have  reached  four  hundred 
years  in  advance  of  the  power  which  sent  them  forth, 
and  how  much  farther  into  the  future  they  were  pro- 
jected, we  know  not ;  for  the  progress  of  the  human  race 
is  not  yet  completed. 

More  than  a  century  later,  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  another 
of  the  really  great  men  whose  thoughts  have  been  directed 
to  the  problem  of  a  better  adjustment  of  earthly  condi- 
tions, wrote  his  New  Atlantis.  Thomas  Campanella,  a 


KING   MAMMON.  233 

Dominican  friar,  gave  to  the  world  a  description  of  his 
City  of  the  Sun,  in  the  same  period.  Other  imaginary 
societies  were  described  by  authors  not  so  well  known  in 
history,  whose  creations  are  of  little  interest  now  except 
to  the  curious  inquirer  incited  by  a  special  interest  in  those 
subjects.  The  word  communism  has  usually  been  applied 
to  all  these  early  plans  of  organizing  social  effort,  and 
while  their  methods  vary  to  some  extent,  a  general  idea 
of  the  theories  underlying  them  can  be  gained  from  the 
principles  announced  in  Morelle's  Basiliade,  published  in 
1753.  The  author  was  strongly  impressed  with  the  idea 
of  a  "  perfect  state  of  nature,"  so  commonly  entertained 
in  that  period  under  the  theory  that  civilization  was  a 
degenerated  social  condition,  and  his  book  was  the  im- 
aginary history  of  a  people  who  divested  themselves  of 
civilized  conditions  to  return  to  natural  perfection.  Private 
ownership  he  regarded  as  the  mother  of  all  crimes.  His 
social  formulas  were  as  follows  : 

1.  Nothing  in  society  shall  belong  to  any  one  in  parti- 
cular, nor  be  the  private  property  of  any  person,  except 
such  things  as  shall  be  required  for  actual  use,  either  in 
supplying  personal  wants,  or  in  creating  immediate  pleas- 
ure, or  what  may  be  wanted  for  daily  labor. 

2.  Every  citizen  shall  be  regarded  as  a  public  person 
supported  and  maintained  at  the  public  expense. 

3.  Every  citizen  shall  contribute  his  share  towards  what 
is  necessary  for  the  public  good,  according  to  his  strength, 
talent,  and  age.      For  this  purpose  his  duties  shall  be  reg- 
ulated in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  distribution. 

Up  to  the  troubled  times  of  the  French  Revolution,  the 
communistic  ideas  were  embodied  in  the  form  of  imagin- 
ary societies,  it  being  dangerous  for  an  author  to  openly 
attack  existing  institutions,  and  the  frank  advocacy  of 
such  ideas  could  result .  in  nothing  but  ridicule  and  dis- 
grace even  if  their  advocate  escaped  the  dungeon.  The 


234  KING  MAMMON. 

communistic  idea,  however  crude  and  undesirable  it  may 
seem  in  any  plan  that  has  ever  been  ideally  presented,  or 
attempted  in  actual  experiment,  has,  nevertheless,  at- 
tracted the  favorable  consideration  of  some  of  the  greatest 
men  who  have  ever  lived.  The  records  attached  to  the 
names  of  Plato,  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  Lord  Bacon  are  not 
those  which  will  be  affixed  to  the  evanescent  memories  of 
most  human  beings,  and  the  real  thinker,  knowing  this 
truth,  regards  the  socialistic  idea  reverently,  in  view  of 
the  evils  of  our  present  existence,  even  if  he  does  not 
regard  it  hopefully  as  a  means  of  speedy  relief,  or  assent 
to  the  conclusions  of  its  ardent  advocates.  Ebenezer 
Elliott  described  the  communist  in  the  following  lines, 
which  reflect  the  opinion  still  widely  entertained  of  the 
character  of  men  who  have  advanced  such  theories  : 

What  is  a  Communist  ?     One  who  has  yearnings 

For  equal  division  of  unequal  earnings. 

Idler  or  bungler,  or  both,  he  is  willing 

To  fork  out  his  penny  and  pocket  your  shilling. 

History,  however,  disproves  the  assertions  of  the  Corn 
Law  Rhymer,  for  the  men  who  have  most  ably  and  per- 
sistently advocated  principles  involving  more  or  less  of 
the  communistic  idea,  have  been,  indisputably,  sincere 
philanthropists,  interested  in  the  general  welfare  and  pro- 
gress of  humanity,  rather  than  in  any  selfish  personal  in- 
terests, and  not  actuated  by  any  desire  to  reduce  humanity 
to  a  common  level  that  they  as  individuals  might  profit 
The  motives  of  all  who  have  urged  socialism  or  com- 
munism with  any  intelligence  or  ability  have  invariably 
been  pity  for  human  suffering  and  hatred  of  the  tyranny 
arising  from  great  inequality  in  wealth.  Robert  Owen 
could  have  been  a  millionaire  had  he  desired  a  large  for- 
tune, for  he  possessed  great  business  talents  ;  but  he  pre- 
ferred to  expend  $300,000  in  trying  to  improve  the  condi- 
tion of  his  fellow-creatures.  St.  Simon  threw  away  a 


KING   MAMMON.  235 

fortune  and  reduced  himself  to  poverty  in  the  same  vain 
efforts.  Horace  Greeley  was  deeply  imbued  with  social- 
istic ideas,  yet  the  people  of  the  United  States  will  not 
regard  him  as  one  who  desired  to  thrive  by  the  losses  of 
his  fellow-creatures,  for  his  whole  life  disproves  such 
calumnies.  The  real  mental  and  moral  condition  of  the 
great  socialists  has  been  one  of  too  little  instead  of  too 
great  selfishness.  Endowed  with  a  more  selfish  nature, 
they  would  have  exhibited  more  cynicism  and  distrust  of 
human  nature,  and  having  those  not  altogether  undesir- 
able habits  of  regarding  other  men,  they  would  not  have 
displayed  that  sublime  faith  in  the  rectitude  and  capabili- 
ties of  average  humanity  which  has  so  frequently  led 
them  into  their  mad  attempts  to  effect  an  immediate 
partnership  among  all  their  fellow-creatures. 

About  one  hundred  years  ago,  when  the  phenomenally 
iniquitous  condition  of  class  rule  and  tyranny  in  France 
resulted  in  the  fearful  scourge  which  temporarily  ob- 
literated distinctions  of  rank,  a  swarm  of  communistic 
writers  appeared  in  that  country.  Their  teachings  were 
a  modified  form  of  the  older  communistic  ideas,  not 
usually  so  harsh  or  rigid  in  the  equality  demanded,  and 
to  these  and  later  teachings  the  word  socialism  is  now 
applied,  the  term  not  being  used  in  this  sense  till  1835. 
Previous  to  that  time  communism  was  the  expression 
used  to  designate  the  social  plans  here  described.  At  the 
present  time,  the  word  communism  appears  to  be  going 
out  of  use  to  describe  such  social  theories,  and  is  giving 
way  to  the  more  recent  term. 

The  writings  of  Rousseau — Jean  Jacques,  as  Carlyle 
in  crabbed  mood  designated  him — were  one  means  of 
developing  and  concentrating  the  rebellious  spirit  of  the 
French  people  upon  their  wrongs  in  the  era  preceding 
their  terrible  revolt  Rousseau  described  conditions  then 
existing  and  compared  them  with  what  he  supposed  had 


236  KING  MAMMON. 

been  the  progress  of  civilization,  instead  of  describing  an 
ideal  community  as  his  predecessors  had  done.  His  history 
of  civilization  was,  however,  largely  ideal,  for  he  was  one 
of  the  innumerable  millions  who  have  believed  that  some- 
where in  the  dim  vistas  of  the  past,  if  men  could  only  see 
clearly,  there  could  be  found  an  existence  happier  by  far 
than  the  miserable  present.  At  the  beginning  of  the  In- 
stitutes of  Narada,  the  Hindu  Justinian,  writing  in  the 
fifth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  occur  the  following 
observations  : 

"When  mortals  were  bent  on  doing  their  duty  alone 
and  habitually  veracious,  there  existed  neither  lawsuits, 
nor  hatred,  nor  selfishness.  The  practice  of  duty  having 
died  out  among  mankind,  lawsuits  have  been  introduced, 
and  the  king  has  been  appointed  to  decide  lawsuits, 
because  he  has  authority  to  punish." 

This  philosophy  of  Narada  expresses  the  same  hoary 
fallacy  that  afflicted  Rousseau's  views  of  life  and  that 
haunts  the  minds  of  half  the  people  in  existence  to-day. 
Like  the  brilliant  French  writer,  they  think  the  world 
grows  worse  instead  of  better,  and  thus  worship  the  im- 
aginary virtues  of  the  past  instead  of  hopefully  regarding 
the  developments  of  the  future.  One  hundred  years  ago 
Rousseau  expressed  in  powerful  language  the  spirit  of  his 
age  and  gave  utterance  to  the  awakening  thoughts  of 
millions  in  whose  changing  minds  the  real  rebellion  against 
class  rule  was  being  effected.  It  was  the  period  that 
gave  to  this  country  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
the  burning  words  of  Jefferson  and  Thomas  Paine,  with 
their  uncompromising  hatred  of  artificial  inequality, 
oppression,  and  class  favoritism.  A  remarkable  parallel 
exists  between  the  social  and  political  agitation  of  a  cen- 
tury ago  in  Europe  and  America,  and  the  very  similar 
discontent  that  now  exists  among  the  people  of  these 


KING  MAMMON.  237 

nations.  When  Rousseau's  books  were  published,  the 
real  revolution  had  already  been  effected  in  France,  for 
he  merely  expressed  better  than  other  men  what  the 
changed  minds  of  the  people  already  thought.  Similarly, 
the  real  revolution  of  this  period  is  already  far  toward  its 
completion,  for  the  minds  of  the  people  in  their  conception 
of  human  duty  are  greatly  changed,  and  are  still  changing 
every  day.  If  the  revolution  in  sentiment  is  resisted  by 
bitter  and  selfish  obstructionists,  instead  of  being  guided 
and  wisely  directed  by  sincere  patriots,  it  may  result  in 
armed  contests  like  the  revolutions  of  one  hundred  years 
ago  ;  but  if  a  fair  and  free  expression  be  given  to  the  senti- 
ment of  the  people  and  the  truth  recognized  that  a  change 
of  social  institutions,  sooner  or  later,  is  inevitable,  the 
revolution  of  the  twentieth  century  will  be  a  peaceful 
modification  of  political  and  social  conditions  and  advan- 
tageous to  all  our  people. 

Rousseau  was  the  apostle  of  liberty  and  equality.  With 
innumerable  contemporaries  in  Europe  and  America,  he 
assisted  to  break  down  the  ancient  idea  of  heredity  in 
government,  according  to  which  some  men  were  born  to 
rule,  irrespective  of  any  natural  qualifications  for  ruling, 
and  other  men  were  born  to  serve  them  in  the  capacity 
of  slavish  subjects. 

He  was  not  formally  a  socialist,  for  he  did  not 
attempt  plans  for  the  equal  distribution  of  wealth  and 
labor,  but  he  assisted  in  destroying  the  idea  of  a  divinity 
in  political  and  social  privileges  on  account  of  birth.  He 
voiced  the  demand  that  the  people  should  make  their  own 
laws  and  levy  taxes  upon  themselves,  instead  of  being 
under  the  dominion  of  an  aristocratic  class  who  paid  noth- 
ing toward  the  expense  of  social  organization,  but  lived 
like  leeches  upon  the  body  politic.  The  fundamental 
idea  of  socialism  is  equality,  and  the  men  who  preached 
the  doctrines  of  Rousseau  did  more  to  further  its  real 


238  KING  MAMMON. 

progress  than  did  those  who  advocated  equality  of  prop- 
erty while  class  rule  and  tyranny  existed.  Rousseau  be- 
lieved that  the  inequality  of  wealth  should  be  constantly 
checked  by  laws  giving  better  opportunities  for  accumu- 
lation to  the  poor ;  he  advocated  public  education  ;  he 
held  the  rights  of  property  sacred  ;  he  opposed  the  aboli- 
tion of  inheritance  ;  and  he  believed  in  taxation  that  would 
throw  the  heaviest  burden  upon  the  rich,  with  some 
scheme  of  land  reform  that  would  prevent  its  monopoli- 
zation. 

The  writings  of  St.  Simon,  published  after  the  great 
revolution,  were  an  advance  from  the  crude  communistic 
thought  of  the  earlier  period.  He  was  a  bold,  original 
thinker  and  a  philanthropist  who  sacrificed  his  position  in 
the  French  nobility  to  his  fidelity  to  the  principles  he 
advocated.  With  the  characteristic  traits  of  the  typical 
Frenchman,  he  believed  that  a  revolution  in  the  social 
world  would  occur  the  instant  that  men  read  his  plans  for 
a  better  adjustment.  His  moral  creed  was  that  all  should 
labor  for  the  development,  material  and  moral,  of  the 
class  most  numerous  and  poor — a  very  good  doctrine,  but 
one  seldom  observed,  even  by  those  making  a  specialty 
of  moral  teachings.  St.  Simon  commenced  the  teaching 
of  modern  socialism  by  declaring  that  the  lower  classes 
had  been  first  in  a  condition  of  abject  slavery ;  then 
under  serfdom  ;  finally,  under  the  modern  wage  system, 
in  a  condition  that  is  only  mitigated  serfdom.  He 
attacked  the  principle  of  heredity  in  wealth,  and  urged  the 
entire  abolition  of  hereditary  successions,  and^their  rever- 
sion to  the  state.  The  doctrine  of  property  rights  de- 
manded by  the  St.  Simonians  was  embodied  in  the  say- 
ing :  "From  each  according  to  his  capacity;  to  each 
capacity  according  to  its  work. "  Capital  they  regarded 
as  a  fund  accumulated  by  the  joint  efforts  of  the  com- 
munity and  not  as  the  property  of  the  capitalist.  They 


KING    MAMMON.  239 

advocated  the  ownership  of  land  and  capital  by  the  state, 
and  thus  developed  the  foundations  of  the  modern  social- 
ism that  has  been  urged  so  strongly  in  Germany  ;  but  the 
most  distinctive  feature  of  their  creed  was  their  denuncia- 
tion of  inheritance. 

Charles  Fourier's  socialistic  plans,  produced  contem- 
poraneously with  the  St.  Simonian  doctrines,  attracted 
great  attention  in  France  early  in  the  present  century. 
His  scheme  was  a  purely  artificial  transformation  of 
society  by  its  organization  into  groups  of  from  600  to 
2,000  people  occupying  a  square  league  of  land,  in  the 
centre  of  which  was  to  be  erected  a  magnificent  com- 
munal dwelling,  similar  to  a  great  hotel,  surrounded  by 
other  buildings  for  use  in  such  industrial  arts  as  the  in- 
habitants of  the  tract  might  conduct.  Fourier's  character- 
istics were  the  prominence  which  he  gave  to  the  econom- 
ical features  of  communal  effort  in  manufacturing  and 
in  domestic  life,  and  he  showed  what  a  vast  saving  is 
accomplished  when  aggregated  effort  replaces  individual 
labor.  Reasoning  from  observation  of  the  intense  ac- 
tivity displayed  by  men  in  hunting  and  other  sports,  he 
endeavored  to  provide  plans  for  making  work  pleasant  in 
communal  life.  He  would  arbitrarily  divide  society  into 
three  classes,  capitalists,  laborers,  and  men  of  talent — 
giving  to  each  class  a  definite  portion  of  the  social  wealth. 
It  is  evident  that  all  such  ideas  involving  sudden  social 
transitions  are  necessarily  barren  of  any  immediate 
practical  results ;  nevertheless,  many  of  the  economi- 
cal results  foreseen  by  the  penetrating  mind  of  Fourier 
have  already  been  accomplished  under  competition  by  the 
aggregation  of  capital  and  the  subdivision  of  labor. 

Later  in  the  century,  about  the  year  1848,  Louis 
Blanc  denounced  the  crude,  radical  ideas  of  the  early 
communists  and  also  the  doctrines  of  the  St.  Simonians, 
proposing  instead  of  them  his  own  schemes  of  social 


240  KING   MAMMON. 

organization.  Blanc's  idea  was  to  provide  co-operative 
industrial  associations  to  carry  on  various  manufactures 
in  competition  with  private  capital.  As  he  occupied  a 
prominent  position  in  the  provisional  government  of 
France,  he  was  allowed  to  test  his  plans  in  actual  opera- 
tion. The  government  subsidized  fifty-six  industrial 
associations  under  his  plan,  but  they  all  failed.  While 
moderate  in -some  of  his  demands,  Louis  Blanc  was,  in 
his  socialistic  division  of  wealth,  the  most  radical  of  re- 
formers, for  his  formula  is  :  "From  all  in  proportion  to 
ability;  to  all  in  proportion  to  needs."  Justice,  under 
these  doctrines,  does  not  give  to  each  according  to  effort 
or  ability,  and  the  strong  must  in  some  cases  do  more 
labor  than  the  weak  for  a  less  reward. 

In  England,  Robert  Owen,  whose  name  is  well  known 
to  the  people  of  this  country,  was  a  contemporary  of 
Fourier.  Owen  was  a  shrewd,  practical  business  man  of 
great  executive  talent,  whose  phenomenal  capacity  for 
organization  distinguished  him  from  other  socialists. 
Owning  cotton  mills  at  New  Lanark,  Owen,  having  the 
temperament  of  a  philanthropist,  became  impressed  with 
the  miserable  existence  of  his  employes,  which  was  then 
the  universal  condition  of  the  laborers  of  Europe.  He 
gave  them  better  dwellings  at  cost ;  he  provided  stores 
where  they  might  obtain  goods  at  the  lowest  prices ;  and 
he  afforded  opportunities  for  them  to  lay  by  savings  and 
invest  them.  He  reduced  the  day's  labor  to  ten  hours, 
and  at  one  time,  when  business  was  depressed,  he  main- 
tain-ed  his  laborers,  though  unemployed,  at  an  expense  of 
£7,000.  Owen  believed  that  vice  and  crime  are  diseases 
resulting  from  the  impoverished  and  brutalizing  surround- 
ings in  which  men  are  placed,  and  he  constantly  appealed 
to  their  better  nature,  making  efforts  to  raise  them  by 
improving  their  environment.  One  of  his  theories  was 
that  "every  county  should  provide  a  farm  for  the  employ- 


KING    MAMMON.  241 

ment  of  the  poor,  and,  if  circumstances  permit,  a  manu- 
factory connected  with  it,  to  enable  the  poor  to  support 
themselves. u  "Competition,"  he  said,  "is  the  cause  of 
many  vices ;  association  will  be  their  corrective.  That 
the  heart  is  corroded  with  selfish  ambition,  that  the  ener- 
gies are  stimulated  by  unworthy  vanity,  is  due  entirely 
to  the  present  organization  of  society."  He  advocated 
socialism,  and  owing  to  his  successful  plans  for  factory 
improvement,  he  received  much  respectful  attention.  At 
one  time  Parliament  almost  decided  to  seriously  investi- 
gate his  methods,  and  noted  people  from  all  over  Europe 
visited  his  factory.  His  ideas  were  strongly  in  conflict 
with  the  intense  conservatism  of  England,  and  he  came 
to  America  seeking  a  more  favorable  field  for  his  social 
operations,  and  founded  a  colony  at  New  Harmony, 
Indiana.  It  failed,  as  all  institutions  do  that  are  far  in 
advance  of  average  human  development,  and  Owen  said 
of  its  result :  "The  last  experiment  has  made  it  evident 
that  families  trained  in  the  individual  system,  founded  as 
it  is  on  superstition,  have  not  acquired  those  moral  qual- 
ities of  forbearance  and  charity  for  each  other  which  are 
necessary  to  promote  full  confidence  and  harmony  among 
all  the  members,  and  without  which  communities  cannot 
exist."  Returning  to  England  after  the  failure  at  New 
Harmony,  Owen  continued  his  experiments  at  the  expense 
of  his  fortune,  and  his  last  organization  at  "Harmony 
Hall"  was  broken  up  when  he  was  eighty  years  old  ;  but 
he  advocated  his  doctrines  to  the  close  of  his  long  life. 

The  theories  of  socialism  received  much  sympathy  and 
encouragement  in  the  writings  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  John 
Ruskin,  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  three  of  the  greatest 
thinkers  in  the  recent  history  of  England.  The  Lake 
Poets — Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  Southey — were  also 
in  their  youth  strongly  imbued  with  the  socialistic  faith. 
In  our  own  country,  the  history  of  Brook  Farm  shows 
16 


242  KING   MAMMON. 

how  the  minds  of  able  men  who  afterwards  became 
famous  were  attracted  by  the  delusive  idea  of  building 
beautiful  and  stately  social  structures  from  the  imperfect 
and  unsubstantial  materials  of  ordinary  human  nature. 

The  teachings  of  the  writers  whose  names  have  been 
noted  in  these  pages,  with  the  swarm  of  lesser  authors 
attending  them,  constitute  the  theoretical  socialism  of 
the  past.  It  will  be  observed  that  all  the  plans  suggested 
by  these  socialists  were  merely  social  and  economic 
changes  to  be  effected  by  voluntary  association  and  co- 
operative effort  based  on  free  will  and  the  consent  of  all 
who  participated.  The  socialists  of  the  past  did  not  pro- 
pose to  change  the  forms  of  government  by  the  will  of  the 
majority,  and  make  men  socialists  whether  they  desired 
socialism  or  not ;  but  the  socialists  of  the  present  are  of  a 
very  different  type,  or  rather  they  find  public  sentiment 
more  tolerant  of  their  ideas,  and  are  thus  enabled  to 
extend  them  farther  than  their  predecessors  could  push 
their  plans.  Theoretical  socialism  of  the  present  is 
aggressive.  It  proposes  to  transform  monarchies  into 
democracies,  and  these  into  social-democracies  based  on 
the  equal  ownership  of  capital,  or  wealth  used  for  repro- 
duction in  all  its  forms.  The  movement  has  commenced 
in  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world,  but  its  ablest  advocates 
and  principal  writings  have  emanated  from  Germany  in 
the  last  thirty  years.  It  is  incorrect,  however,  to  suppose 
that  the  new  socialism  spreads  and  extends  outward  from 
any  point  like  waves  on  the  surface  of  water.  The 
socialistic  thought  arises  in  the  minds  of  the  people  all 
over  the  world  at  about  the  same  time,  owing  to  the 
condition  of  their  civilization,  and  it  is  a  product  of  the 
brain-power  of  each  individual.  Right  or  wrong  in  its 
theories  and  methods,  it  develops  spontaneously  among 
the  people  of  every  nation,  and  those  short-sighted  oppo- 
nents who  propose  to  prevent  the  immigration  of  social- 


KING   MAMMON.  243 

ists  by  some  kind  of  legal  wire-netting  around  national 
boundaries,  merely  expose  their  ignorance  of  social 
development  by  making  absurd  suggestions.  Modern 
socialism  is  already  a  prominent  form  of  public  thought 
in  every  country  of  Europe,  and  in  the  English  colonies 
of  Australia  and  New  Zealand.  Until  a  very  few  years 
ago,  the  United  States  was  supposed  to  be  free  from  this 
movement,  but  the  People's  Party,  now  quite  a  strong 
political  movement,  especially  in  the  western  part  of  the 
country,  is  clearly  socialistic  in  the  doctrines  it  sustains, 
and  is  nearly  in  line  with  the  European  movement, 
although  not  consciously  so. 

So  extensive  is  the  literature  of  this  new  movement, 
that  mere  histories  of  its  development  now  require  twice 
the  space  of  this  volume.  Yet  the  actual  principles  in- 
volved are  few,  and  they  do  not  require  lengthy  consider- 
ation to  be  understood  in  a  general  way.  Some  of  the 
socialistic  works,  the  Capital  of  Karl  Marx  in  particular, 
which  is  called  the  Bible  of  Modern  Socialism,  display 
profound  historical  research  and  much  learning,  but  they 
are  so  insufferably  tedious  that  much  of  their  usefulness 
as  a  means  of  propagating  the  socialistic  idea  must  be 
lost  in  the  verbosity.  While  there  is  some  variation  in 
the  theories  and  methods  of  the  different  schools  of 
modern  socialism,  the  essential  nature  of  the  movement, 
wherever  found,  is  that  of  a  vigorous  attempt  to  destroy 
capitalistic  competition  of  all  kinds,  and  to  substitute  for 
it  the  public  ownership  and  operation  of  all  means  of 
production,  transportation,  and  distribution  by  political 
action  and  the  agency  of  the  law.  It  will  at  once  be 
seen  that  the  new  socialism  is  vastly  different  in  its 
methods  from  the  old  doctrine.  The  former  depended 
exclusively  upon  voluntary  association,  and  no  man  need 
be  a  practical  socialist  unless  he  desired  to  and  joined  a 
colony.  The  latter  depends  upon  the  number  of  votes 


244  KING  MAMMON. 

it  can  control,  and  whenever  it  can  secure  a  working 
majority,  it  proposes  that  the  minority  shall  become 
practical  socialists,  whether  they  like  socialism  or  not. 
There  is  nothing  wrong  in  this  political  method,  more 
than  what  occurs  in  all  political  action,  but  the  condition 
shows  that  while  the  old  socialism  was  a  mere  toy  with 
which  men  amused  themselves,  the  new  socialism  is  a 
weapon  with  which  they  propose  to  hew  down  opposition 
if  they  can. 

To  thoroughly  understand  the  real  causes  of  this  vast 
undertaking  of  the  socialists,  much  consideration  and 
reflection  are  necessary.  Under  the  existing  productive 
system,  developed  mainly  in  the  last  century,  and  more 
particularly  in  the  last  fifty  years,  the  manufactures  of 
every  civilized  nation,  instead  of  being  effected  in  small 
establishments  scattered  over  a  wide  area,  under  many 
different  employers  each  having  a  few  workmen,  are 
now  concentrated  into  huge  establishments,  each  under 
the  dominion  of  a  capitalist  or  a  company  of  capitalists, 
employing  an  army  of  laborers,  subdividing  the  mechani- 
cal processes,  owning  a  complex  and  expensive  system 
of  machinery,  and  reducing  by  these  economical  advan- 
tages the  cost  of  production  to  such  an  extent  that  every 
small  establishment  within  the  field  of  competition  is 
driven  to  the  wall  and  crushed  out  of  existence.  Simi- 
larly, small  merchants  acting  as  distributors  are  crushed 
out  of  existence  by  greater  ones,  and  great  railroad  sys- 
tems absorb  the  smaller  lines.  In  every  branch  of  pro- 
ductive human  effort,  the  tendency  of  the  nineteenth 
century  has  been  to  consolidate  the  business  into  great 
plants  having  a  few  extremely  wealthy  owners,  a  vast 
accumulation  of  machinery,  wherever  it  can  be  profitably 
used,  and  an  army  of  laborers  at  wages  under  a  system 
of  subdivided  effort.  The  small  blacksmith  and  wagon- 
making  shop  has  become  the  great  factory  sending  vehi- 


KING   MAMMON.  245 

cles  to  all  parts  of  the  world  ;  the  village  shoemaker 
shops  are  gone,  and  in  place  of  them  are  a  few  great  shoe- 
factories  selling  their  products  wherever  civilization 
exists  ;  the  small  butcher  gives  way  to  Philip  Armour ;  the 
little  store  is  abandoned  before  the  progress  of  the  Mar- 
shall Fields ;  the  teamsters  are  absorbed  in  a  few  great 
railway  systems,  controlled  by  the  Goulds  and  the  Hunt- 
ingtons.  The  small  towns,  owing  to  the  impossibility 
of  small  manufactures,  are  killed  out  or  kept  from  grow- 
ing, and  wealth  and  population  concentrate  in  the  great 
cities,  where  the  valuable  land,  the  buildings  and  the 
machinery  in  fabulous  values  drift  into  the  possession  of 
great  capitalists,  who  manage  this  surplus  wealth  of  the 
nation  and  conduct  its  enterprises. 

On  the  other  hand  the  workman's  relative  power  and 
importance  as  a  social  unit  compared  with  that  of  his 
employer  has  been  steadily  diminished  by  this  process. 
Under  the  old  system,  the  laborer,  by  economy  and  en- 
terprise, could  easily  become  an  employer,  and  the  one 
was  so  little  removed  from  the  other  in  station  that  a 
bond  of  sympathy  existed  constantly  between  them. 
Now  the  laborer  is  as  far  removed  from  the  employer  in 
any  great  modern  establishment  as  the  pauper  is  from 
the  prince,  and  instead  of  sympathy,  antagonism  exists. 
As  a  result  of  this  lessening  of  his  individual  power,  the 
laborer  has  been  impelled  by  the  universal  tendency  to 
concentrate,  and  he  has  accordingly  united  with  his  fel- 
lows in  great  labor  organizations,  to  be  wielded  as  a 
single  body  like  the  great  railroad  system  or  manufactur- 
ing combination.  Trusts  are  denounced  on  the  one 
hand,  and  labor  unions  on  the  other ;  but  the  opponents 
of  both  might  as  well  denounce  the  water  of  the  Miss- 
issippi for  finding  its  way  to  the  Gulf.  Both  trusts  and 
unions  are  products  of  a  natural  process  as  unavoidable  as 
the  formation  of  salt  crystals  when  sea-water  is  evaporated. 


246  KING   MAMMON. 

Modern  socialists  claim  that  this  process  of  concentra- 
tion is  still  going  on,  and  that  it  will  go  on  in  spite  of 
any  legislative  efforts  to  prevent  further  concentration. 
They  believe  that  ultimately  the  concentration  of  capital 
will  become  so  extreme  and  the  laborers  so  bitterly  dis- 
contented under  the  difficulties  attending  periods  of  de- 
pression, when  large  numbers  of  men  are  thrown  out  of 
employment,  with  no  other  means  of  earning  a  subsist- 
ence than  their  narrow  line  of  factory  duties,  and  with 
no  demand  for  their  limited  special  skill,  that  in  the  final 
result  the  whole  capitalistic  system  of  competition  will 
be  overthrown.  The  supposed  transition  is  to  occur 
either  gradually  or  suddenly,  according  to  the  maturity  of 
the  socialist's  mind  (the  older  he  is  the  slower  the  process), 
and  the  wealth  of  the  country  is  then  to  be  converted 
into  a  common  fund  for  productive  effort  under  the  equal 
ownership  of  the  people,  the  laborers  being  transformed 
into  salaried  employes  of  the  socialistic  government. 
Some  theorists  include  in  this  socialistic  effort  the  culti- 
vation of  the  land,  and  others  do  not,  but  the  socialism 
ordinarily  proposed  includes  the  public  control  of  every 
means  of  production,  transportation,  and  distribution. 

Under  such  a  system,  private  ownership  could  not 
exist  except  in  the  possession  of  personal  property  of 
small  value  for  immediate  use.  Land,  buildings,  rail- 
roads, manufacturing  establishments,  stores  of  all  kinds, 
and  the  whole  system  of  exchange  would  become  public 
property  and  be  controlled  by  agents  of  the  people. 
Rent,  interest,  and  profit,  the  three  terrible  Gorgons  of 
the  socialist's  mind,  would  no  longer  exist.  Except  for 
foreign  exchange,  coin  would  be  of  no  use  in  such  a 
community,  and  there  would  be  neither  a  gold  nor  a  sil- 
ver party,  labor  checks  being  substituted  for  the  metals. 
There  would  be  no  private  business  in  renting  property, 
buying  and  selling,  lending  money,  manufacturing  or 


KING    MAMMON.  247 

transporting-,  and  the  entire  able-bodied  population  would 
be  placed  under  the  necessity  of  doing  some  kind  of 
mental  or  physical  labor  as  productive  work  for  an  ap- 
proximately equal  share  in  the  results  of  aggregated 
effort. 

Absurdly  visionary  as  these  vast  plans  appear  to  the 
man  who  considers  them  for  the  first  time,  they  are  seri- 
ously considered  and  advocated  in  one  form  or  another 
by  a  large  percentage  of  the  people  in  every  country 
of  Europe,  and  similar  doctrines  are  developing  quite 
rapidly  in  America.  In  Germany,  the  modern  socialistic 
movement  is  based  upon  the  writings  of  Ferdinand 
Lassalle  and  Karl  Marx,  both  bitterly  opposing  capitalism 
and  both  of  the  Jewish  race,  which  has  hitherto  always 
been  characterized  by  a  special  fondness  for  the  very 
things  these  apostles  of  socialism  denounced.  Thirty 
years  ago,  when  the  socialistic  writings  of  Lassalle  were 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  workingmen  of  Germany,  the 
older  socialism  of  the  French  and  English  writers,  the 
idealism  of  Fourier,  Blanc,  St.  Simon,  and  Robert  Owen, 
was  apparently  dead  and  the  people  were  torpid.  At  first 
the  teachings  of  this  writer  appeared  to  have  no  effect,  but 
when  the  capitalistic  system  developed  and  the  phleg- 
matic Germans  had  plenty  of  time  to  consider  his  theor- 
ies, the  movement  gathered  headway  after  the  death  of 
Lassalle  in  the  duel  which  closed  his  career.  The  theories 
of  Lassalle  and  Marx  have  been  termed  Scientific  Social- 
ism, because,  instead  of  merely  constructing  an  ideal 
communistic  society  based  on  their  own  conceptions, 
these  modern  writers  first  review  the  history  of  the  past, 
and  then  consider  the  present  condition  of  our  industrial 
institutions  with  the  object  of  determining  what  the  next 
development  in  that  progress  will  be.  These  later  theories 
might  well  be  termed  Evolutionary  Socialism,  for,  like" 
other  branches  of  modern  thought,  the  theoretical  social- 


248  KING   MAMMON. 

ism  of  the  present  applies  the  idea  of  gradual  develop- 
ment to  society  and  its  modes  of  industry.  Concerning 
the  developments  of  the  future,  the  scientific  socialists 
may  be  right  or  they  may  be  wrong,  for  men  at  best  are 
very  unreliable  prophets,  but  Marx  and  Lassalle  have 
recorded  the  industrial  history  of  the  past  with  infinite 
labor  and  much  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  social  develop- 
ment. At  the  time  they  wrote,  their  ideas  were  based 
upon  a  much  wider  and  deeper  information  of  econom- 
ical progress  than  their  adversaries  possessed. 

Lassalle  charges  that  the  present  capitalistic  system 
of  production  is  unjust  to  the  laborer,  who  works  for  a 
mere  subsistence  in  periods  of  average  prosperity,  and  at 
every  unfavorable  fluctuation  in  the  industrial  world,  is 
thrown  into  want  and  compelled  to  endure  hardships  by 
lack  of  employment.  His  view  of  wages  and  the  wage- 
system  was  so  utterly  hopeless  that  he  believed  the  la- 
borer was  absolutely  precluded  from  ever  improving  his 
condition  and  that  all  the  wealth  the  laborer  produced 
beyond  a  mere  subsistence  was  immediately  transferred 
to  the  capital  of  the  employer,  the  tendency  of  wages 
being  constantly  to  sink  to  a  point  merely  sufficient  to 
afford  the  laborer  existence.  He  thus  regarded  every 
workman  as  a  slave  toiling  to  develop  a  huge  fund  of 
surplus  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  capitalist,  that  accu- 
mulation being  made  up  of  the  small  portions  of  which 
each  laborer  was  robbed  in  the  industrial  process. 

Karl  Marx's  thoughts  followed  similar  lines,  dealing 
mainly  with  the  employment  of  labor  by  capital,  in  great 
manufacturing  industries.  He  claims  that  justice  de- 
mands for  the  laborer  all  that  he  produces,  whereas, 
under  the  competitive  system  of  the  present,  every  lab- 
orer engaged  in  prosperous  production  pays  over  to  his 
employer  a  surplus  on  every  day's  work,  which  thus  in- 
creases the  capital  and  robs  the  workman  of  that  portion 


KING    MAMMON.  249 

of  his  earnings  ;  for  Marx  insists  that  the  laborer  is  en- 
titled to  all  he  produces,  and  should  not  be  subjected  to 
this  capitalistic  tax — rent,  interest,  or  profit — which  the 
socialist  denounces  as  robbery.  He  does  not  term  the 
capitalist  who  gains  by  one  of  these  methods  a  robber, 
and  he  evinces  no  class  animosity  nor  envy  of  wealth, 
but  he  regards  capitalists  and  laborers  as  being  alike  help- 
less under  the  competitive  system  and  unable  to  avoid  its 
evil  results.  Marx's  great  treatise  on  capital  is  a  cool, 
scientific  discussion,  as  tedious  and  unfeeling  as  the  ordi- 
nary rule  of  arithmetic  for  extracting  the  cube  root.  His 
book  even  contains  mathematical  formulae,  demonstrat- 
ing to  the  satisfaction  of  his  followers,  that  no  other  re- 
sult can  happen  from  the  competitive  system  than  the 
ultimate  reduction  of  all  wages  to  a  mere  sufficiency  for 
existence,  and  the  aggregation  of  all  surplus  wealth 
above  that  in  the  form  of  capital. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  modern  socialism  is  not  the 
philanthropic  ideas  of  tender-hearted  reformers  like  the 
older  socialists,  but  it  is  a  political  movement  pressed  for- 
ward by  men  who  firmly  believe  that  they  are  subjected 
to  unjust  conditions.  If  the  modern  movement  should 
be  successful  in  securing  majorities,  it  would  attempt  to 
transform  governmental  institutions  in  accordance  with 
the  socialistic  idea,  and  compel  the  minority  to  conform 
to  the  new  methods  of  human  effort,  no  matter  how 
bitterly  they  might  detest  them.  As  Dr.  Schaffle  says, 
modem  socialism  "is  primarily  a  question  of  the 
stomach,"  and  it  is  pushed  with  energy  by  no  inconsid- 
erable number  of  men  who  feel  that  their  own  interests 
are  being  damaged  by  existing  social  methods,  and  who 
ardently  desire  a  change.  The  development  of  socialism 
is  heralded  by  Herbert  Spencer  as  ' '  The  Coming  Slavery, " 
and  many  other  individualists  regard  the  socialistic  nation 
as  a  possibility  equally  despotic  and  mechanical  in  its 


250  KING   MAMMON. 

nature  with  the  ancient  Spartan  military  socialism  under 
the  laws  of  Lycurgus. 

In  Germany,  the  progress  of  socialism  has  been  marked 
by  a  rapid  advance  since  1870.  In  a  recent  article,  Herr 
Liebknecht,  the  leader  of  the  party  in  the  Reichstag,  gives 
a  hint  of  their  present  methods  in  the  following  words  : 

"  Of  course,  when  we  have  a  village-meeting  we  do  not 
give  a  lecture  on  Marx's  'Capital,'  but  we  speak  about 
the  villagers'  economic  and  social  situation,  about  the 
debts  of  the  small  peasants,  the  wages  of  the  agricultural 
laborers,  the  misery  in  which  they  both  have  to  live,  and 
the  reason  why.  We  show  the  working  and  action  of 
capitalism,  how  capital  destroys  property, — the  property  of 
all  those  who  have  to  live  on  their  handiwork  ;  how  prop- 
erty is  in  a  state  of  constant  warfare,  how  small  properties 
are  devoured  by  big  properties,  — the  small  farms  by  the  big 
farms  ;  how  of  the  five  and  one-half  millions  of  soi-disant 
landed  proprietors  in  Germany  according  to  the  later  pub- 
lished statistics,  half  a  million  at  the  utmost  have  still 
real  property  of  their  own,  and  how  the  others  are  pro- 
prietors only  in  name,  who  will  soon  disappear,  swept 
away  by  the  crushing  power  of  capitalism.  And  if  we 
succeed  in  getting  the  ears  of  our  hearers,  we  win  them." 

Thirty  years  ago  the  socialists  of  Germany  numbered 
only  7,000  men.  In  1895  the  party  contained  nearly 
2,000,000  electors  ;  that  is,  men  above  twenty-five  years 
of  age.  It  is  called  the  party  of  the  discontented  in  Ger- 
many, and  the  socialists  do  not  object  to  the  name. 
They  have  secured  the  advocacy  of  nearly  one-fourth  of 
the  voting  population  of  the  country  for  their  claims,  and 
they  appear  to  be  steadily  progressing.  The  socialistic 
movement  means  the  destruction  of  the  monarchy  with 
the  absolutism  of  the  days  of  Bismarck,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  a  democracy  ;  after  that  there  will  be  as  much 
socialism  in  the  new  institutions  as  the  people  are  prepared 
for,  and  no  more. 


KING   MAMMON.  2$  I 

France  in  recent  years  has  had  no  commanding  leader 
or  writer  in  socialistic  thought,  and  the  socialists  of  that 
republic  are  divided  into  four  parties,  two  of  which  may- 
be better  classed  as  anarchists.  The  great  body  of  French 
socialists  are  termed  Collectivists,  and  they  believe  that 
a  social  revolution  is  unavoidable  ;  but,  like  the  German 
socialists,  they  wish  to  form,  out  of  the  fragments  of  the 
present  system,  another  organization  in  which  all  wealth 
will  be  nationalized  and  all  competition  dead,  where 
everyone  will  work  according  to  his  ability  and  receive 
according  to  his  needs.  The  number  of  these  socialists 
of  France  was  between  one  and  two  millions  in  1888,  but 
they  do  not  form  a  very  compact  body.  The  Collectivists 
are  cool-headed  reformers  who  accept  whatever  small 
advantages  they  can  secure  as  fast  as  they  can  obtain 
them,  and  do  not  wait  for  the  whole  social  fabric  to  be 
destroyed  that  a  suitable  preparation  may  be  made  for 
their  own  form  of  government.  Another  more  radical 
but  less  numerous  body  of  the  French  socialists,  the 
Guesdists  or  Impossibilists,  are  obstructionists  in  their 
tactics,  harassing  the  government  perpetually  with  re- 
quests, petitions,  and  public  denunciation  by  means  of 
pamphlets,  and  they  refuse  to  seek  or  accept  minute  or 
moderate  changes. 

In  England  there  exists  a  strong  socialistic  movement 
which  aims  to  abolish  the  hereditary  powers  of  the  peer- 
age, and  convert  the  monarchy  into  a  democracy  as  a. 
preliminary  move  to  further  progress.  The  English  con- 
tributions to  socialistic  thought  have  recently  become  the 
most  valuable  essays  published  anywhere  in  the  world. 
The  Fabian  Society  is  an  association  of  talented  and 
thoroughly  educated  men  and  women  who  devote  a  por- 
tion of  their  time  and  means  to  educating  the  public  in 
the  real  nature  of  socialism,  and  the  history  and  present 
tendencies  of  industrial  life.  The  Fabians  are  in  the  front 


252  KING   MAMMON. 

rank  of  socialistic  progress,  for  they  clearly  understand 
that  all  really  beneficial  and  permanent  social  changes 
must  be  very  slowly  accomplished,  and  that  the  genuine 
socialism  is  not  the  accomplishment  of  a  brief  revolution 
announced  by  a  vote  of  the  people,  but  the  slow  changes 
accomplished  in  men  and  their  institutions  by  the  pro- 
gress of  centuries.  The  recent  utterances  of  Professor 
Goldvvin  Smith,  prefixed  to  this  chapter,  on  the  develop- 
ment of  this  new  movement  in  Europe,  and  especially  in 
conservative  England,  indicate  the  apprehension  with 
which  many  thinking  men  regard  the  future. 

It  was  supposed  until  within  the  last  few  years  that  the 
United  States  offered  no  field  for  the  development  of 
socialism,  but  the  fallacy  of  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of 
mere  governmental  forms  is  once  more  exploded  by  the 
rapid  rise  of  the  People's  Party,  based  on  socialistic 
ideas,  independent  of  any  connection  whatever  with  the 
European  organizations,  and  with  members  generally 
quite  ignorant  of  the  ideals  of  the  Old  World.  The  more 
radical  but  smaller  organization  of  the  Socialist  Labor 
Party  is  also  busily  circulating  pamphlets  and  books  con- 
taining the  socialistic  thought  in  various  forms.  The 
movement  commenced  in  America  later  than  in  Europe, 
because  there  was  less  crowding  among  the  people  here, 
and  less  discontent  on  account  of  our  greater  opportuni- 
ties ;  but  now  that  it  has  begun,  the  socialistic  progress 
will  probably  go  on  more  rapidly  in  America  than  in 
Europe,  for  there  are  fewer  obstructions  in  the  way,  and 
the  people  are  trained  in  older  political  parties  to  co- 
operate. In  Europe  the  democracy  must  be  accomplished 
before  any  further  progress  can  be  made  ;  in  America  the 
democracy  is  already  here,  and  from  that  point  the  people 
can  go  on  toward  whatever  improvements  in  their 
national  life  they  may  be  capable  of  understanding  and 
appreciating  in  their  present  development. 


KING   MAMMON.  253 

Having  thus  accomplished  a  brief  survey  of  that  theo- 
retical socialism  of  the  present,  which  exists  only  in  the 
minds  of  its  advocates,  and  which  is  proposed  as  a  remedy 
for  all  the  governmental  ills  of  the  future,  it  may  be  well 
to  inquire  what  the  real  socialism  of  the  future  is  likely 
to  be,  or  whether  any  form  of  socalism  can  exist.  To 
really  gain  a  comprehension  of  the  probable  future,  we 
must  study  the  past  and  the  present.  The  essential 
nature  of  socialism,  as  advocated  in  all  the  plans  de- 
scribed here,  embodies  assistance  to  one  another  and 
cooperation  as  a  substitute  for  the  universal  opposition 
of  competitive  effort.  Competition  has  been  the  ruling 
force  of  human  existence  on  earth,  for  in  our  earliest 
history  of  the  race,  there  was  competition,  fierce  and 
bitter,  between  families  and  tribes,  and,  in  our  later  pro- 
gress, competition  between  individuals.  Yet  there  never 
was  a  time  when  human  beings  did  not  blend  a  degree  of 
socialism  with  the  fierce  contests  of  brute  existence,  and 
thus  soften  the  hardships  of  a  purely  animal  life.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  absolutely  pure  competition,  except 
among  the  lower  animals  and  the  plants  in  their  struggle 
for  existence. 

Observe  a  grove  of  young  pines  on  the  hillside.  They 
are  densely  set,  all  apparently  full  of  life-blood — green, 
thrifty,  and  each  determined  to  push  its  head  vigorously 
toward  the  blue  sky  and  the  sunlight.  Go  again  to  the 
grove,  and  we  shall  find  some  of  the  competitors  weaken- 
ing, slight  tinges  of  yellow  appearing  in  their  leaves, 
slenderness  and  delicacy  characterizing  their  bodies,  and 
their  thin,  feathery  heads  scarcely  on  a  level  with  their 
sturdier  neighbors'  dense  plumes.  Another  year  will  leave 
the  weaklings  in  the  shadow  of  their  stronger  comrades, 
deprived  of  the  sun's  bright  rays  and  warmth,  chilled  at 
the  top  and  choked  at  the  root,  starved  all  along  the 
drying  body,  and  crushed  out  of  existence  by  their  more 


254  KING   MAMMON. 

thrifty  rivals.  Still  another  year  will  show  the  starvelings 
dead,  decaying,  and  on  their  way  to  earth  as  food  to 
further  strengthen  the  "survival  of  the  fittest."  Such  is 
competition  absolutely  unalleviated  ;  and  in  the  animal 
world  above  the  lowest  orders  it  does  not  exist,  even  among 
brutes  and  brutal  men,  for  there  is  always  the  socialism 
that  is  found  between  parent  and  offspring. 

Existing  under  pure  competition,  men  would  say  to 
their  fellow-creatures,  as  it  is  conceivable  that  brute-like 
man  once  actually  said  in  his  habits  and  customs  :  "It 
is  not  my  responsibility  nor  care  whether  you  live  or  die. 
You  may  be  my  neighbor,  or  my  friend,  or  even  my  rela- 
tive, but  you  must  provide  for  your  own  necessities  and 
die  when  you  can  no  longer  do  so.  I  shall  seek  only  my 
own  welfare  and  my  own  existence."  Under  such  com- 
petition neither  the  human  race  nor  the  higher  animals 
could  exist,  for  there  must  be  a  degree  of  socialism  even 
among  brutes.  In  the  human  family  under  the  pure  com- 
petition of  pine-tree  existence,  the  race  could  not  survive, 
for  parents  would  neither  protect  helpless  infancy,  nor 
sons  and  daughters  assist  aged  parents. 

The  rigid  doctrines  of  competitive  existence,  if  now 
applied  to  the  higher  animals  or  to  man,  would  exter- 
minate them.  There  is  socialism — a  real  and  genuine 
socialism — even  among  brutes,  and  its  earliest  develop- 
ment is  in  the  parental  instinct.  Little  fishes  "  sink  or 
swim,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish"  without  any  protec- 
tion or  assistance  from  the  parent ;  but  little  birds  and  all 
other  higher  types  of  animal  life  are  protected  by  the  ten- 
derness of  the  socialistic  idea,  displayed  in  the  self-sacri- 
ficing devotion  of  one  or  both  of  the  parents.  With  brain 
development  and  progress  in  the  scale  of  animal  existence 
this  unselfish  feeling  grows  and  expands.  From  eating 
one  another  and  slaughtering  their  own  children,  human 
beings  have  arrived  at  a  condition  wherein  they  some- 


KING   MAMMON.  255 

j 

times  feel  like  helping  one  another  to  live,  and  lilce  sav- 
ing and  protecting  other  men's  children  as  well  as  their 
own.  • 

The  care  of  the  Aged  and  infirm  is  one  of  the  earliest 
developments  of  genuine  socialism.  Applied  rigorously, 
the  competitive  creed  would  announce  to  the  decrepit 
man  or  woman,  even  if  a  parent :  "It  is  not  my  busi- 
ness whether  you  live  or  die,  for  life  is  a  struggle  in  which 
the  strongest  survive.  You  will  have  to  perish  when  you 
can  no  longer  support  yourself. "  The  lowest  races  do 
not  protect  the  helpless  members  of  their  tribes  and  fami- 
lies, and  the  solicitude  now  displayed  by  civilized  human 
beings  in  the  care  of  the  infirm  is  not  a  primary  condi- 
tion, but  a  growth  that  has  occupied  centuries  in  its  de- 
velopment, and  which  will  almost  certainly  still  continue 
long  after  the  writer  and  the  reader  of  this  book  have 
fallen  into  dust. 

The  truth  is  that  modern  civilization  is  already  far  on 
its  way  to  the  realization  of  the  only  socialism  under 
which  the  human  race  will  ever  be  permanently  organ- 
ized. The  real  socialism  of  all  time — past,  present,  and 
future — is  the  growth  of  humanized  feelings  and  the  sense 
of  duty  and  responsibility  toward  our  fellow-creatures, 
regardless  of  any  apparently  selfish  worldly  gain  to  our- 
selves, and  not  the  barren  speculations  of  philanthropists, 
however  good  and  wise,  nor  the  complex  systems  of  com- 
munistic government  evolved  in  the  minds  of  reformers 
as  a  prescribed  method  of  securing  justice  and  making 
men  happy.  It  is  the  change  that  has  been  going  on 
steadily  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people  every  cen- 
tury since  man  appeared  on  earth,  under  which  the  in- 
tensely brutal  selfishness  of  his  early  existence  gives  way 
to  higher  and  better  feelings  of  human  duty,  and  the  orig- 
inal cpnception  that  life-effort  should  be  all  for  self 
becomes  slowly  transformed  into  the  belief  that  our  real 


256  KING   MAMMON. 

work  must  eventually  become  each  for  all.  Our  hospitals 
and  almshouses  are  purely  socialistic  institutions  em- 
bodying the  growth  of  this  ethical  id&a.  In  all  fairness, 
under  the  competitive  creed,  why  should  I  be  taxed  to 
keep  some  pauper  alive  and  comfortable  ?  Let  him  die 
when  he  can  no  longer  live  by  his  own  exertions,  and  let 
me  retain  my  property.  Such  must  be  the  logical  con- 
clusion of  pure  competition  ;  but  no  civilized  nation  will 
now  tolerate  such  ideas,  so  the  sick  and  impoverished  are 
maintained  at  public  expense  in  charitable  institutions, 
which  are  established  by  taxation  on  the  exact  basis  of 
the  extreme  socialistic  demand:  "  From  each  according 
to  his  ability  ;  to  each  according  to  his  needs."  Millions 
of  people  are  thus  socialists  in  this  genuine  socialism 
without  knowing  the  nature  of  their  faith,  and  they  in- 
dorse in  one  particular  the  very  ideas  which  they  deride 
in  another. 

In  a  recent  political  speech  made  in  the  State  of  Cali- 
fornia by  a  fairly  intelligent  and  successful  attorney,  the 
speaker  at  the  beginning  of  his  address  denounced  the 
socialistic  tendencies  of  the  age.  Near  the  close  of  his 
speech,  however,  he  praised  the  public-school  system  of 
his  state  and  advocated  the  provision  at  public  expense 
of  free  text-books  for  all  pupils,  a  plan  that  has  been  fre- 
quently suggested  of  recent  years,  the  books  now  being 
printed  by  the  state  and  supplied  to  the  parent  at  cost. 
The  public  schools  of  California  are  supported  mainly  by 
a  tax  upon  all  the  wealth  of  the  entire  state,  and  are  abso- 
lutely free.  Hence,  although  the  speaker  did  not  seem 
to  understand  the  real  nature  of  the  question,  the  schools 
of  California  are  socialism  unadulterated,  and  he  was 
absurdly  proposing  the  socialistic  provision  of  free  text- 
books at  the  close  of  his  speech,  after  having  bitterly 
denounced  "  socialists  and  anarchists"  at  the  beginning. 
All  free  public  schools  supported  by  general  taxation  are 


KING   MAMMON. 

socialistic  institutions,  and  the  supplying  of  free  text- 
books— a  measure  that  is  very  likely  to  become  a  law 
in  California  in  the  near  future — is  a  socialistic  measure  ; 
for  all  people  pay  taxes  in  proportion  to  their  wealth,  sup- 
posed to  represent  their  productive  ability,  and  use  the 
schools  in  proportion  to  their  needs  ;  the  man  with  the 
largest  family  having  the  right  to  send  all  his  children, 
even  if  he  does  not  pay  a  cent  of  taxes.  Similarly,  our 
public  roads,  maintained  by  taxing  wealth,  and  often 
used  more  by  poor  men  than  by  rich  men,  are  socialistic 
institutions.  All  state,  city,  and  national  property  in 
buildings,  parks,  roads,  canals,  water-works,  street-car 
lines,  wharves,  and  bridges,  constitutes  the  foundations  of 
a  future  socialism  to  become  much  more  extensive.  The 
post-office  department  in  the  United  States  is  partially 
socialistic.  We  use  it  according  to  our  needs,  but  we 
pay  according  to  our  ability  only  to  the  extent  of  a  deficit 
in  its  revenues.  Were  the  post-office  absolutely  free,  it 
would  constitute  radical  socialism.  This  book  was  par- 
tially prepared  in  a  socialistic  library,  containing  about 
one  hundred  thousand  volumes,  which  the  people  of  the 
state  purchased  in  proportion  to  their  ability  as  taxpayers, 
and  which  the  same  people  use  in  proportion  to  their 
desires. 

Mutual  life  insurance  and  the  astonishing  develop- 
ment of  the  innumerable  fraternal  and  protective  organiza- 
tions existing  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  constitute 
additional  instances  of  similar  social  ideas  tending  to- 
ward universal  co-operation  and  away  from  the  original 
idea  that  every  man  is  to  live  for  himself  alone.  Imper- 
fect as  these  organizations  undoubtedly  are,  and  marred 
by  the  selfish  acts  and  motives  that  still  afflict  their  mem- 
bers as  well  as  all  other  human  beings,  they,  neverthe- 
less, mark  a  progress,  and  the  ideal  of  a  future  social- 
istic state  may  well  be  that  of  a  perfect  mutual  life  insur- 
17 


258  KING   MAMMON. 

ance  association  embodying  all  the  people,  or  a  truly  fra- 
ternal society  comprising  an  entire  nation.  Who  can 
say,  positively,  that  a  people  who  have  already  within 
a  few  centuries  evolved  free  schools,  free  libraries,  free 
roads,  and  mutual  life  insurance,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
various  forms  of  municipal  socialism,  may  not  go  farther 
and  by  degrees  reach  the  ultimate  condition  of  a  grand 
socialistic  state,  in  which  all  labor  in  proportion  to  their 
ability,  and  all  receive  in  proportion  to  their  misfortunes 
or  sickness  ? 

Yet  it  is  well  not  to  be  deceived  by  the  evidence  of 
progress,  for  development  in  the  future  will  be,  as  in  the 
past,  accomplished  a  very  little  at  a  time.  The  real  so- 
cialism is  now,  and  will  ever  be,  a  slow  growth  and  not 
a  sudden  transformation.  Those  who  hope  or  fear  that 
the  socialistic  state  will  be  brought  suddenly  into  being 
will  be  disappointed,  for  whenever  it  becomes  necessary 
for  socialists  to  formulate  new  plans  instead  of  merely 
objecting  to  old  ones,  they  will  find  themselves  unable  to 
agree  upon  anything  more  than  minute  changes  in  exist- 
ing conditions  entirely  acceptable  to  the  majority.  Hu- 
man institutions,  like  the  human  beings  out  of  which 
they  arise,  will  be  socialized  one  at  a  time.  It  is  custom- 
ary to  look  upon  all  the  people  of  a  city,  a  state,  or  a  na- 
tion, as  being  about  equally  civilized ;  but  the  truth  is 
that  they  constitute  a  motley  group  of  savages,  barbarians, 
and  comparatively  enlightened  human  beings,  standing 
side  by  side,  dressed  in  the  same  clothes,  and  scarcely 
distinguishable  from  one  another  in  outward  appearance, 
yet  having  minds  and  hearts  as  different  from  one  an- 
other as  the  souls  of  Attila  and  Jesus  Christ,  or  the  minds 
of  Thomas  More  and  the  king  who  beheaded  him. 
One  man  has  feelings  and  instincts  and  prejudices  that 
belong  to  the  dark  ages  of  early  race  existence,  so  we  de- 
nounce him  as  a  brute  and  proceed  to  imprison  or  exter- 


KING   MAMMON.  259 

minate  him.  Another  has  emotions  and  aspirations  that 
in  their  development  are  centuries  in  advance  of  those 
surrounding  him,  so  he  is  supposed  to  be  insane,  or  vis- 
ionary, or  impracticable,  or  a  dangerous  disturber  of  so- 
cial order.  The  man  who  is  either  much  behind  or  much 
before  the  average  sentiment  of  his  age  on  account  of 
unfortunate  heredity,  is  apt  to  have  a  sorry  time  of  life. 
Misunderstood  and  reviled  on  all  sides,  comprehending 
neither  his  associates  nor  himself,  he  suffers  without  sym- 
pathy, and  endures  a  lonely  existence  in  spite  of  the  mul- 
titudes associated  with  him,  resembling  in  one  condition 
a  solitary  mammoth  among  a  herd  of  tame  elephants,  or 
in  the  other  a  Herbert  Spencer  searching  for  appreciation 
and  sympathy  among  the  great  lizards  of  the  reptilian 
age.  Owing  to  this  diversity  in  the  progress  of  human 
nature,  very  few  of  us  pass  from  one  stage  of  advance- 
ment to  another  at  the  same  time,  and  sudden  transfor- 
mations in  the  real  nature  of  social  institutions  are,  there- 
fore, an  impossibility,  although  their  outward  forms  may 
be  considerably  modified  in  sudden  changes.  The  social- 
istic agitation  that  is  going  on  in  the  world  is  humaniz- 
ing and  educating.  It  is  compelling  people  to  think.  It 
is  harmless,  and  it  will  not,  unless  repressed  by  foolish 
authority,  do  more  than  to  assist  in  accomplishing  that 
desirable  gradual  progress  from  the  brutal  existence  of 
our  dark  past  to  the  brighter  and  better  life  before  the 
human  race. 

Incidentally,  along  with  this  modification  of  the  selfish 
feelings,  have  occurred  at  times  practical  co-operative 
efforts  that  need  mention  to  complete  the  view  of  social- 
ism. Our  modern  family,  so  far  as  husband,  wife,  and 
minor  children  are  concerned,  is  an  imperfect  socialistic 
organization.  The  ancient  family,  and  the  family  tribe 
that  we  have  designated  as  the  gens,  were  communal  in 
their  nature.  One  form  of  ancient  socialism  applied  to 


260  KING   MAMMON. 

land  may  be  found  in  the  Bible,  where  the  Hebrew  year 
of  Jubilee  was  established  to  provide  for  a  redistribution 
of  the  lands  among  the  people.  No  matter  who  the  pos- 
sessors of  the  land  might  be,  under  this  Jewish  socialism, 
at  the  end  of  fifty  years  it  was  to  be  again  divided  among 
the  descendants  of  the  original  occupants  grouped  into 
families.  The  laws  of  Lycurgus  established  a  peculiarly 
hard  and  despotic  form  of  socialism  in  Sparta  over  eight 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  but  it  was  essentially  a 
military  organization,  and  no  more  a  genuine  socialistic 
development  than  somewhat  similar  features  in  a  modern 
army. 

Since  the  extinction  of  the  old  communal  existence  in 
the  tribe,  with  competition  between  tribes,  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  competition  between  individuals  by  the  devel- 
opment of  wealth  and  private  ownership,  culminating  in 
the  abolishment  of  slavery  or  serfdom  and  the  establish- 
ment of  the  wage-system,  the  attempts  to  practically 
conduct  socialistic  effort  in  the  midst  of  competition 
have  usually  been  failures.  Robert  Owen's  unsuccessful 
experiments  and  those  of  Louis  Blanc  have  already  been 
noted.  A  number  of  small  communistic  societies  have 
existed  in  the  United  States  for  years,  but  their  records 
are  of  little  political  value,  though  intensely  interesting 
to  the  social  student.  Charles  Nordhoff,  after  a  careful 
study  of  these  associations  in  1874,  found  that  about  five 
thousand  actual  communists  then  existed  in  the  United 
States,  comprising  seventy-two  communities  established 
in  thirteen  states.  They  owned  150,000  acres  of  land, 
and  were  in  the  aggregate  worth  about  $12,000,000,  held 
absolutely  as  community  wealth,  or  approximately  $2,400 
per  communist.  As  a  financial  result,  this  statement  is 
favorable  to  the  communists,  for  the  average  wealth  of 
each  person  in  the  United  States  at  the  date  of  the  last 
census  was  only  about  $1,000.  Commenting  on  this 


KING  MAMMON.  261 

accumulation,  their  historian  says:  "It  is  not  an  exag- 
geration to  say  that  this  wealth  has  been  created  by  the 
patient  industry  and  strict  economy  and  honesty  of  the 
owners,  without  a  positive  desire  on  their  part  to  accumu- 
late riches,  and  without  painful  toil." 

Of  these  societies,  the  Icarians  are  of  French  origin, 
the  Shakers  and  Perfectionists  principally  Americans,  and 
the  others  Germans,  the  latter  people  seeming  to  be  more 
naturally  adapted  to  communistic  life  of  that  form  than 
any  others.  In  religion,  the  Icarians  reject  Christianity, 
their  religion  being  merely  the  communistic  idea  ;  at 
Bethel  and  Aurora  the  people  regarded  the  essence  of  all 
religion  as  unselfishness  ;  and  Mr.  NordhofT  describes  the 
other  communists  as  possessing  deep  religious  convic- 
tions, neither  narrow  nor  intolerant.  The  Icarians  forbid 
celibacy,  and  ordinary  sexual  relations  are  maintained  in 
some  of  the  colonies.  The  Shakers  and  Rappists  are 
celibates,  maintaining  their  numbers  by  adopting  children 
and  initiating  new  men.  The  Shakers  regard  celibacy 
as  essential  to  communism,  but  the  Perfectionists  under 
John  Henry  Noyes,  long  maintained  the  institution  of 
communal  marriage,  till  a  strong  adverse  sentiment 
among  their  competitive  neighbors  compelled  them  to 
discontinue  the  custom.  All  these  communists  were 
usually  found  to  be  apparently  contented,  comfortable, 
and  happy,  in  the  quiet,  monotonous  life  they  had  chosen, 
but  it  seemed  to  their  investigator  that  this  contentment 
arose  mainly  out  of  the  peculiar  adaptation  of  each 
member  to  their  life,  and  not  so  much  in  the  real  adapta- 
tion of  that  life  to  the  restless  people  in  the  bustling 
world  surrounding  the  Colonies.  The  colonists  were 
usually  unable  to  retain  children  raised  among  them,  the 
temptations  of  the  outside  world  proving  very  attractive 
to  the  young  folks,  in  spite  of  the  dangers  and  possible 
misery  to  be  found  in  it.  These  forms  of  socialism, 


262  KING   MAMMON. 

while  they  are  interesting  experiments,  are  not  really 
important,  for  they  do  not  and  cannot  progress,  and  they 
form  no  considerable  part  of  that  great  onward  march 
of  humanity  which  tends  continually  to  make  men  help 
instead  of  hinder  one  another  and  thus  evolves  slowly 
the  only  real  socialism  of  heart,  mind,  and  hand. 


ANARCHISM. 

The  anarchists  are  numerically  a  small  and  compara- 
tively unimportant  part  of  modern  social  agitators  ;  but 
the  startling  crimes  that  have  been  committed  by  the 
destructive  exponents  of  this  strange  creed,  and  the 
mysterious,  and,  to  most  minds,  incomprehensible  nature 
of  their  belief,  gives  to  them  an  interest  far  beyond  their 
real  influence  as  social  factors.  Anarchism,  as  literature, 
has  its  origin  in  the  writings  of  William  Godwin,  who 
published  his  work  on  "  Political  Justice"  at  London  in 
1798.  This  English  anarchist  expressed  his  opinion  of 
existing  institutions  in  the  following  language  : 

"Let  us  fairly  consider  for  a  moment  what  is  the 
amount  of  injustice  inflicted  in  the  institution  of  aristo- 
cracy. I  am  born,  suppose,  a  Polish  prince  with  an  in- 
come of  £300,000  per  annum.  You  are  born  a  manorial 
serf  or  a  Creolian  negro,  attached  to  the  soil,  and  trans- 
ferable by  barter  or  otherwise  to  twenty  successive  lords. 
In  vain  shall  be  your  most  generous  efforts  and  your 
unwearied  industry  to  free  yourself  from  the  intolerable 
yoke.  Doomed  by  the  law  of  your  birth  to  wait  at  the 
gates  of  the  palace  you  must  never  enter ;  to  sleep  under 
a  ruined,  weather-beaten  roof,  while  your  master  sleeps 
under  canopies  of  state ;  to  feed  on  putrefied  offals,  while 
the  world  is  ransacked  for  delicacies  for  his  table  ;  to 
labor  without  moderation  or  limit  under  a  parching  sun, 
while  he  basks  in  perpetual  sloth  ;  and  to  be  rewarded  at 
last  with  contempt,  reprimand,  stripes,  and  mutilation." 


KING    MAMMON.  263 

The  extract  above  quoted  merely  expresses  the  author's 
hatred  of  injustice,  but  in  the  following  selection  from  his 
book  the  characteristic  ideas  of  the  anarchists  are  expressed. 

"  Mankind  will  never  be,  in  an  eminent  degree,  virtuous 
and  happy  till  each  man  shall  possess  that  portion  of 
distinction,  and  no  more,  to  which  he  is  entitled  by  his 
personal  merits.  The  dissolution  of  aristocracy  is  equally 
the  interest  of  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed.  .  .  . 
This  is  not  an  equality  introduced  by  force  or  main- 
tained by  the  laws  and  regulations  of  a  positive  institu- 
tion. It  is  not  the  result  of  accident,  of  the  authority  of 
a  chief  magistrate,  or  the  over-earnest  persuasion  of  a  few 
enlightened  thinkers  ;  but  it  is  produced  by  the  serious 
and  deliberate  conviction  of  the  public  at  large.  It  is  one 
thing  for  men  to  be  held  to  a  certain  system  by  the  force 
of  laws  and  the  vigilance  of  those  who  administer  them  ; 
and  a  thing  entirely  different  to  be  held  by  the  firm  and 
habitual  persuasion  of  their  own  minds.  Equality  of  con- 
ditions cannot  assume  a  fixed  appearance  in  human 
society  till  the  sentiment  becomes  deeply  impressed  as 
well  as  widely  diffused,  that  the  genuine  wants  of  any 
man  constitute  his  only  just  claim  to  the  ultimate  appro- 
priation and  the  consumption  of  any  species  of  com- 
modity." 

At  the. time  Godwin  wrote,  the  word  anarchism  was 
not  applied  to  social  doctrines,  the  word  anarchy  being 
used  in  an  entirely  different  sense.  The  ideas  of  self- 
government  and  individualism,  which  are  the  distinctive 
features  of  the  anarchist's  belief,  pervade  all  his  writings, 
so  that  he  is  clearly  an  anarchist  in  all  but  the  name. 

Proudhon,  the  famous  French  writer  who  was  re- 
peatedly jailed  on  account  of  his  fierce  denunciation  of 
existing  institutions,  and  who  commenced  his  book  with 
the  conclusion  at  the  beginning,  charging  that  "  Property 
is  robbery  and  the  proprietor  a  thief,"  assumed  the  modern 
name  about  the  middle  of  the  present  century  by  writing 
as  follows  :  "  I  have  just  given  you  my  serious  and  well- 


264  KING  MAMMON. 

considered  profession  of  faith.  Although  a  firm  friend  of 
order,  I  am  (in  the  full  force  of  the  term)  an  anarchist." 
He  denounces  both  property  (by  which  he  means  ab- 
solute private  ownership)  and  communism,  and  declares 
for  individual  possession  as  the  necessary  condition  for 
social  life.  In  his  peculiar  style  he  declared  that  "  Property 
is  the  exploitation  of  the  weak  by  the  strong.  Commu- 
nism is  the  exploitation  of  the  strong  by  the  weak.  Com- 
munism is  oppression  and  slavery."  It  will  thus  be  seen 
at  once  that  little  sympathy  exists  between  the  anarchists 
and  the  socialists,  except  in  their  detestation  of  existing 
conditions.  Indeed,  when  Herbert  Spencer  writes  of 
the  "  Coming  Slavery,"  his  thoughts  are  essentially  those 
of  an  anarchist,  though  he  is  not  usually  ranked  as  such, 
because  he  is  not  at  warfare  with  society.  He  is  an 
extreme  individualist,  however,  very  jealous  of  supposed 
infractions  of  personal  liberty,  and  a  believer  in  the  ulti- 
mate self-government  of  human  beings,  all  of  which  are 
ideas  and  feelings  characterizing  the  anarchists. 1 

Owing  to  the  savage  crimes  that  have  been  committed 
by  some  of  the  anarchists,  the  impression  is  very  preva- 
lent that  they  are  low,  ignorant,  brutal  men,  whose  hands 
and  voices  are  raised  against  society  in  extreme  selfish- 
ness and  malignance.  Such  is  not  the  case.  All  anar- 

1 "  That  form  of  society  toward  which  we  are  progressing,  I  hold  to  be 
one  in  which  government  will  be  reduced  to  the  smallest  amount  possi- 
ble, and  freedom  increased  to  the  greatest  amount  possible — one  in 
which  human  nature  will  have  become  so  molded  by  social  discipline 
into  fitness  for  the  social  state,  that  it  will  need  little  external  restraint, 
but  will  be  self-restrained — one  in  which  the  citizen  will  tolerate  no  in- 
terference with  his  freedom,  save  that  which  maintains  the  equal  freedom 
of  others — one  in  which  the  spontaneous  co-operation  which  has  devel- 
oped our  industrial  system,  and  is  now  developing  it  with  increasing 
rapidity,  will  produce  agencies  for  the  discharge  of  nearly  all  social  func- 
tions, and  will  leave  to  the  primary  governmental  agency  nothing  beyond 
the  function  of  maintaining  those  conditions  to  free  action,  which  make 
such  spontaneous  co-operation  possible — one  in  which  individual  life 
will  thus  be  pushed  to  the  greatest  extent  consistent  with  social  life;  and 
in  which  social  life  will  have  no  other  end  than  to  maintain  the  complet- 
est  sphere  for  individual  life."— HERBERT  SPENCER. 


KING  MAMMON.  265 

chists  are  men  of  great  natural  intelligence,  and,  usually, 
of  considerable  education.  In  fact,  a  dull,  or  stupid,  or 
shallow  intellect  cannot  comprehend  the  creed  of  anar- 
chism, and  it  is,  at  first,  difficult  to  grasp  thoroughly,  even 
by  a  powerful  mind,  if  it  be  not  already  trained  in  that 
line  of  thought. 

At  the  head  of  the  French  anarchists  stands  iLlisee 
Reclus,  the  great  geographer  and  scientist,  whose  name 
in  this  capacity,  as  Dr.  Jekyll,  is  revered  throughout  the 
civilized  world,,  while  in  his  other  self,  personating  Mr. 
Hyde,  he  becomes  an  anarchist  of  the  most  pronounced 
and  uncompromising  type  in  theory,  though  he  is  in 
practice  a  kind-hearted,  benevolent  man,  who  would  not 
consciously  destroy  a  fly.  Reclus  thinks  the  destruc- 
tive anarchists  who  have  been  hanged  are  noble  creatures, 
dying  for  the  sake  of  their  principles  ;  while  nearly  all  the 
rest  of  the  world  outside  of  his  creed  regards  the  same  men 
with  horror  and  detestation.  He  is  the  son  of  a  Protes- 
tant minister,  and  a  highly-educated  man  of  refined  and 
gentle  manners.  During  the  war  of  the  rebellion  he  was 
a  staunch  friend  of  the  union  against  the  continuance  of 
slave  power,  and  he  is  an  anarchist  because  of  that  same 
hatred  of  tyranny  operating  in  other  directions.  In  the 
French  insurrection  of  1871  he  was  involved  in  revolt,  and 
his  life  was  saved  only  by  the  petitions  of  other  great 
scientists,  such  as  Darwin  and  Wallace.  He  is  an  ad- 
mirer of  the  French  and  the  American  revolutions  of  one 
hundred  years  ago,  and  hopes  for  something  similar  in  the 
present  to  sweep  away  what  he  considers  the  tyranny  of 
capitalistic  power. 

Prince  Kropotkin,  the  Russian  anarchist,  is  a  warm 
friend  of  Reclus,  and  they  agree  perfectly  in  their  social 
theories.  Kropotkin  is  also  a  scientist  of  the  modern 
evolutionary  type,  and  one  of  the  foremost  thinkers  of  his 
age,  contributing  frequently  to  current  publications  of  a 


266  KING  MAMMON. 

high  standard.  He  has  with  characteristic  clearness  and 
decision  given  his  own  explanation  of  the  anarchist  creed, 
which  will  be  quoted  here  as  one  of  the  best  existing 
comments  on  that  belief.  Kropotkin  says  in  regard  to  the 
meaning  of  the  name  they  have  chosen  : 

"It  is  the  no-government  system  of  socialism. 

"In  common  with  all  socialists,  anarchists  hold  that  the 
private  ownership  of  land,  capital,  and  machinery  has  had 
its  time  ;  that  it  is  condemned  to  disappear  ;  and  that 
all  requisites  for  production  must  and  will  become  the 
common  property  of  society,  and  be  managed  in  common 
by  the  producers  of  wealth. 

"They  maintain  that  the  idea  of  the  political  organization 
of  society  is  a  condition  of  things  where  the  functions  of 
government  are  reduced  to  a  minimum  and  the  individual 
recovers  his  full  liberty  of  initiative  and  action  for  satisfy- 
ing, by  means  of  free  groups  and  federations  freely  con- 
stituted, all  the  infinitely  varied  needs  of  the  human  being. 
As  regards  socialism,  most  of  the  anarchists  arrive  at  its 
ultimate  conclusions,  that  is,  at  a  complete  negation  of 
the  wage  system  and  at  communism.  In  political  organi- 
zation, they  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  the  ultimate  aim 
of  society  is  the  reduction  of  the  functions  of  government 
to  nil — that  is,  to  a  society  without  government,  to  an- 
archy." 

Concerning  the  economical  and  political  belief  of  the 
anarchists,  the  author  says  : 

' '  The  anarchist  claims  to  be  an  evolutionary  thinker.  He 
considers  society  as  an  aggregation  of  organisms  trying 
to  find  out  the  best  ways  of  combining  the  wants  of  the 
individual  with  those  of  co-operation  for  the  welfare  of 
the  species.  He  believes  that  the  two  most  prominent, 
although  often  unconscious  tendencies,  throughout  our 
history  were  :  a  tendency  towards  integrating  our  labor 
for  the  production  of  all  riches  in  common,  so  as  finally 
to  render  it  impossible  to  discriminate  the  part  of  the 
common  production  due  to  the  separate  individual  ;  and 
a  tendency  towards  the  fullest  freedom  of  the  individual 


KING   MAMMON.  267 

for  the  prosecution  of  all  aims  beneficial  both  for  himself 
and  for  society  at  large. 

"Therefore,  in  common  with  all  socialists,  the  an- 
archist says  to  the  political  reformer  :  '  No  substantial 
reform  in  the  sense  of  political  equality,  and  no  limitation 
of  the  powers  of  government,  can  be  made  as  long  as 
society  is  divided  into  two  hostile  camps,  and  the  laborer 
remains,  economically  speaking,  a  serf  to  the  employer/ 
But,  to  the  Popular  State  Socialist,  we  say  also  :  '  You 
cannot  modify  the  existing  conditions  of  property  with- 
out deeply  modifying  at  the  same  time  the  political 
organization.  You  must  limit  the  powers  of  government 
and  renounce  Parliamentary  rule.  To  each  new  econo- 
mical phase  of  life  corresponds  a  new  political  phase. 
Absolute  monarchy — that  is,  court-rule — corresponded  to 
the  system  of  serfdom.  Representative  government 
corresponds  to  capital-rule.  Both,  however,  are  class- 
rule.  But  in  a  society  where  the  distinction  between 
capitalist  and  laborer  has  disappeared,  there  is  no  need 
of  such  a  government  ;  it  would  be  an  anachronism — a 
nuisance.  Free  workers  would  require  a  free  organization, 
and  this  cannot  have  another  basis  than  free  agreement 
and  free  co-operation,  without  sacrificing  the  autonomy 
of  the  individual  to  the  all-pervading  interference  of  the 
State.  The  no-capitalistic  system  implies  the  no-govern- 
ment system.' 

"  It  is  not  a  mere  coincidence  that  Herbert  Spencer  has 
been  brought  to  conclude,  with  regard  to  political  organi- 
zation, that  the  form  of  society  towards  which  we  are  pro- 
gressing is  one  in  which  government  will  be  reduced  to 
the  smallest  amount  possible,  and  freedom  increased  to 
the  greatest  amount  possible.  When  he  opposes  in  these 
words  the  conclusions  of  his  synthetic  philosophy  to  those 
of  Auguste  Comte,  he  arrives  at  very  nearly  the  same 
conclusions  as  Proudhon  and  Bakunin." 

With  regard  to  the  injustice  of  the  present  social  system, 
which  is  peculiarly  exasperating  to  the  anarchists,  Prince 
Kropotkin  says  : 

"When  a  rich  man  spends  a  thousand  pounds  for  his 
stables,  he  squanders  from  five  to  six  thousand  days  of 


268  KING   MAMMON. 

human  labor,  which  might  be  used,  under  a  better  social 
organization,  for  supplying  with  comfortable  homes  those 
who  are  compelled  to  live  now  in  dens.  And  when  a 
lady  spends  a  hundred  pounds  for  a  dress,  we  cannot  but 
say  that  she  squanders  at  least  two  years  of  human  labor, 
which  again,  under  a  better  organization,  might  have 
supplied  a  hundred  women  with  decent  dresses,  and  much 
more  if  applied  to  a  further  improvement  of  the  instru- 
ments of  production.  .  .  .  When  millions  of  days  of  labor 
are  spent  every  year  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  stupid 
vanity  of  the  rich,  so  many  millions  of  workers  have  been 
diverted  from  the  manufacture  of  those  useful  instruments 
which  would  permit  us  to  decuple  and  centuple  our 
present  production  of  means  of  subsistence  and  of  re- 
quisites for  comfort. 

"Three  quarters  of  all  the  acts  which  are  brought  every 
year  before  our  courts,  have  their  origin,  either  directly  or 
indirectly,  in  the  present  disorganized  state  of  society, 
with  regard  to  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth — 
not  in  the  perversity  of  human  nature.  As  to  the  relatively 
few  anti-social  deeds  which  result  from  anti-social  inclina- 
tions of  separate  individuals,  it  is  not  by  prisons,  nor  even 
by  resorting  to  the  hangman,  that  we  can  diminish  their 
number.  By  our  prisons  we  merely  multiply  them  and 
render  them  worse.  By  our  detectives,  our  "  price  of 
blood,"  our  executions,  and  our  jails,  we  spread  in  society 
such  a  terrible  flow  of  basest  habits  and  passions,  that  he 
who  would  realize  the  effects  of  these  institutions  to  their 
full  extent,  would  be  frightened  by  what  society  is  doing 
under  the  pretext  of  maintaining  morality. 

"  If  all  our  children — all  children  are  our  children — 
received  a  sound  instruction  and  education — and  we  have 
the  means  of  doing  so  ;  if  every  family  lived  in  a  decent 
home — and  they  could  under  the  present  high  pitch  of  pro- 
duction ;  if  every  boy  and  girl  were  taught  a  handicraft 
at  the  same  time  he  or  she  receives  a  scientific  instruction, 
and  not  to  be  a  manual  producer  of  wealth  were  considered 
as  a  token  of  inferiority  ;  if  men  lived  in  closer  contact 
with  one  another,  and  had  continually  to  come  into  con- 
tact on  those  public  affairs  which  now  are  invested  in  the 
few  ;  and  if,  in  consequence  of  a  closer  contact,  we  were 
brought  to  take  as  lively  an  interest  in  our  neighbors' 
difficulties  and  pains  as  we  formerly  took  in  those  of  our 


KING   MAMMON.  269 

kinsfolk — then  we  should  not  resort  to  policemen  and 
judges,  to  prisons  and  executions.  The  anti-social  deeds 
would  be  prevented  in  the  bud,  not  punished,  and  the  few 
contests  which  would  arise  would  be  settled  by  arbitra- 
tion." 

Reclus  and  Kropotkin  are  fine  types  of  the  philosophic 
or  scientific  anarchists,  who  hate  tyranny  and  pity  what 
they  consider  the  wrongs  of  their  oppressed  fellow-crea- 
tures, yet  who  do  not  attempt  or  advise  the  immediate 
violent  destruction  of  the  competitive  social  system  to  make 
room  for  their  ideals.  The  greatest  apostle  of  destruction 
was  Michel  Bakunin,  the  father  of  Nihilism,  who,  in  a 
speech  made  at  Geneva  in  1868,  announced  the  new  creed 
in  the  following  language  : 

"  Brethren,  I  come  to  announce  to  you  a  new  gospel, 
which  must  penetrate  unto  the  very  ends  of  the  world.  This 
gospel  admits  of  no  half-measures  and  hesitations.  The 
old  world  must  be  destroyed  and  replaced  by  a  new  one. 
The  lie  must  be  stamped  out  and  give  way  to  the  truth. 
It  is  our  mission  to  destroy  the  lie  ;  and  to  effect  this  we 
must  begin  at  the  very  commencement.  Now  the  begin- 
ning of  all  those  lies  which  have  ground  down  this  poor 
world  in  slavery  is  God.  For  many  hundred  years  mon- 
archs  and  priests  have  inoculated  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
mankind  with  this  notion  of  a  God  ruling  over  the  world. 
They  have  also  invented  for  the  people  the  notion  of 
another  world,  in  which  their  God  is  to  punish  with  eter- 
nal torture  those  who  have  refused  to  obey  their  degrad- 
ing laws  here  on  earth.  This  God  is  nothing  but  the  per- 
sonification of  absolute  tyranny,  and  has  been  invented 
with  a  view  of  either  frightening  or  alluring  nine-tenths 
of  the  human  race  into  submission  to  the  remaining  tenth. 
If  there  were  really  a  God,  surely  he  would  use  that  light- 
ning which  he  holds  in  his  hand  to  destroy  tftose  thrones, 
to  the  steps  of  which  mankind  is  chained.  He  would, 
assuredly,  use  it  to  overthrow  those  altars  where  the  truth 
is  hidden  by  clouds  of  lying  incense.  Tear  out  of  your 
hearts  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  God  ;  for  as  long  as 


2/0  KING   MAMMON. 

an  atom  of  that  silly  superstition  remains  in  your  minds, 
you  will  never  know  what  freedom  is.  When  you  have 
got  rid  of  the  belief  in  this  priest-begotten  God,  and  when, 
moreover,  you  are  convinced  that  your  existence  and  that 
of  the  surrounding  world  are  due  to  the  conglomeration  of 
atoms,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  gravity  and  attrac- 
tion, then,  and  then  only,  you  will  have  accomplished  the 
first  step  toward  liberty,  and  you  will  experience  less  diffi- 
culty in  ridding  your  minds  of  that  second  lie  which 
tyranny  has  invented.  The  first  lie  is  God.  The  second 
lie  is  right.  Might  invented  the  fiction  of  right  in  order 
to  insure  and  strengthen  her  reign — that  right  which  she 
herself  does  not  heed,  and  which  only  serves  as  a  barrier 
against  any  attacks  which  may  be  made  by  the  trembling 
and  stupid  masses  of  mankind.  Might,  my  friends,  forms 
the  sole  groundwork  of  society.  Might  makes  and  un- 
makes laws,  and  that  might  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
majority.  It  should  be  in  the  possession  of  those  nine- 
tenths  of  the  human  race  whose  immense  power  has  been 
rendered  subservient  to  the  remaining  tenth  by  means  of 
that  lying  fiction  of  right  before  which  you  are  accustomed 
to  bow  your  heads  and  to  drop  youi  arms.  Once  pene- 
trated with  a  clear  conviction  of  your  own  might,  you 
will  be  able  to  destroy  this  mere  notion  of  right.  And 
when  you  have  freed  your  mind  from  the  fear  of  a  God, 
and  from  that  childish  respect  for  the  fiction  of  right,  then 
all  the  remaining  chains  which  bind  you,  and  which  are 
called  science,  civilization,  property,  marriage,  morality, 
and  justice,  will  snap  asunder  like  threads.  Let  your  own 
happiness  be  your  only  law.  But  in  order  to  get  this  law 
recognized,  and  to  bring  about  the  proper  relations  which 
should  exist  between  the  majority  and  minority  of  man- 
kind, you  must  destroy  everything  which  exists  in  the 
shape  of  state  or  social  organization.  So  educate  your- 
selves and  your  children  that,  when  the  great  moment 
for  constituting  the  new  world  arrives,  your  eyes  may  not 
be  blinded  by  the  falsehoods  of  the  tyrants  of  throne  and 
altar.  Ourf^rst  work  must  be  destruction  and  annihilation 
of  everything  as  it  now  exists.  You  must  accustom  your- 
selves to  destroy  everything,  the  good  with  the  bad,  for  if 
but  an  atom  of  this  old  world  remains,  the  new  will  never 
be  created.  According  to  the  priests'  fables,  in  days  of  old 
a  deluge  destroyed  all  mankind ;  but  their  God  specially 


KING   MAMMON.  2/1 

saved  Noah  in  order  that  the  seeds  of  tyranny  and  false- 
hood might  be  perpetuated  in  the  new  world.  When  you 
once  begin  your  work  of  destruction,  and  when  the  flood  of 
enslaved  masses  of  the  people  rises  and  engulfs  temples 
and  palaces,  then  take  heed  that  no  ark  be  allowed  to  res- 
cue any  atom  of  this  old  world,  which  we  consecrate  to 
destruction. " 

Bakunin's  creed  is  a  queer,  crazy,  terrible  belief,  only 
possible,  in  the  exact  form  here  illustrated,  to  the  mind  of 
a  Russian  or  a  Frenchman,  for  these  races  are  nearly  alike 
in  their  methods  of  thought  and  manner  of  expression, 
and  it  is  probable  that  far  back  in  ancient  tribal  organiza- 
tion their  origin  was  identical.  Even  in  the  minds  of  these 
people  such  fearful  imprecations  on  society  could  not  be 
formulated  except  when  under  the  influence  of  the  peculiar 
Russian  civilization,  with  its  strange  compound  of  great 
intelligence  among  a  few,  dense,  brutal  ignorance  among 
the  many  ;  extraordinary  liberty  in  the  mir,  tyranny  un- 
bearable in  the  national  organization  ;  communism  in  the 
village,  despotism  and  private  ownership  in  the  palace. 
Unequally  developed  social  conditions,  with  the  argu- 
ments of  Siberian  exile  and  the  knout,  produce  unnatural 
thoughts  when  applied  to  better  surroundings,  but  per- 
fectly natural  thoughts  under  such  exasperating  conditions. 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  there  was  one  Bakunin  in 
Russia,  but  only  that  there  were  not  a  million.  At  Bern, 
the  same  year,  he  addressed  the  following  fierce  language 
to  the  people  : 

"Your  beautiful  civilization,  ye  gentlemen  of  the  west, 
which  you  flout  in  the  face  of  us  barbarians  of  the  east, 
is  based  on  the  compulsory  servitude  of  the  immense 
majority  of  the  human  race,  which  is  condemned  to  a 
slavish  and  almost  bestial  existence,  in  order  that  a  very 
small  minority  may  live  in  luxury.  The  monstrous  in- 
equality in  the  conditions  of  life  is  due  to  your  West 
European  system  of  civilization.  This  degrading  state  of 


272  KING   MAMMON. 

things  cannot  last  much  longer,  for  the  manual  laborers 
are  determined  to  look  after  their  own  interests  in  future. 
They  have  decided  that  in  future  there  shall  be  only  one 
great  class  instead  of  two  ;  that  everybody  shall  have 
equal  advantages  for  starting  in  life  ;  that  all  shall  enjoy 
the  same  privileges  and  support,  the  same  means  of 
education  and  bringing  up;  finally,  that  every  one  shall 
have  the  same  advantages  from  his  labor.  ...  I  detest 
communism  ;  it  is  the  denial  of  freedom,  and  I  do  not 
like  to  picture  to  myself  any  human  being  without  free- 
dom. I  oppose  it  because  it  concentrates  and  absorbs  all 
the  forces  of  society,  and  because  it  places  all  property 
and  capital  in  the  hands  of  the  state.  In  demanding 
the  abolition  of  the  state,  I  also  wish  for  the  annul- 
ment of  the  law  of  inheritance,  which  is  nothing  but  an 
institution  brought  into  life  by  the  state,  and  a  consequence 
of  its  principles.  Give  all  children  from  their  very  birth 
the  same  means  of  support  and  education.  Then  grant 
to  all  grown-up  people  the  same  social  standing  and  the 
same  means  of  supplying  their  wants  by  their  own  labor, 
and  you  will  see  that  the  inequalities,  which  are  now 
looked  upon  as  being  quite  normal,  will  disappear,  for 
they  are  merely  the  result  of  the  difference  made  in  the 
condition  of  development.  You  can  even  improve  na- 
ture by  destroying  the  present  social  organization.  For 
when  you  have  succeeded  in  making  everything  and 
everybody  equal,  when  you  have  equalized  all  the  con- 
ditions of  development  and  labor,  then  many  crimes, 
miseries,  and  evils  will  disappear." 

Alluding  to  the  destructive  theories  of  anarchism, 
Bakunin  said  : 

"  When  it  becomes  evident  that  a  person  cannot  be  more 
severely  punished  for  the  assassination  of  his  sovereign 
than  for  the  murder  of  a  mere  comrade,  then  the  people 
will  comprehend  that  it  is  quite  as  just  to  kill  a  man 
guilty  of  the  abuse  of  power,  as  to  execute  a  poor  beggar 
who  has  been  tempted  by  hunger  to  commit  murder. 
Society  of  to-day,  gangrened  though  it  be,  has,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  understood  this,  for  Damiens-executions  are  a 
thing  of  the  past,  and  in  all  legislations,  regicide  is  now 


KING   MAMMON.  273 

assimilated  to  mere  homicide.  Soon  we  shall  see  the 
authors  of  these  so-called  crimes  enjoying  the  greatest 
consideration  among  us.  The  old  world  will  have  had 
its  time.  On  its  ruins,  the  poor  and  oppressed  will  take 
each  other  by  the  hand,  and  the  true  disciples  of  Christ, 
that  grand  Nihilist,  will  smile  when  they  remember  the 
parable  of  the  poor  man  in  Abraham's  bosom  refusing 
a  drop  of  water  to  the  rich  man  in  hell  and  saying  : 
1  Thou  hast  had  thy  time,  now  it  is  mine  ! ' 

"Then  there  will  arise  a  new  generation,  generous- 
hearted  and  independent,  and  all  mankind  will  be  happy. 
The  children  of  our  children  will  be  forced  to  begin  our 
work  anew  ;  but  the  evils  of  the  future  will  be  less  mon- 
strous than  those  which  we  now  deplore,  just  as  these  in 
their  turn  are  less  trying  and  odious  than  those  to  which 
our  ancestors  were  subjected.  And  thus,  from  struggle 
to  struggle,  and  after  centuries  of  combat,  mankind  will 
finally  attain  perfection  and  become  what  is  called  God. 
To  arms,  then,  brethren,  and  follow  me  to  the  conquest 
of  this  Godhead." 

This  language,  to  the  people  of  our  great  western  re- 
public, sounds  insanely  horrible,  and  it  must  be  connected 
with  the  tyranny  which  is  mainly  instrumental  in  causing 
it  to  be  thoroughly  understood.  A  pamphlet  issued  from 
secret  presses,  hidden  from  the  despotic  government  of 
Russia,  during  the  extreme  Nihilist  movement,  indicates 
in  the  following  extracts  how  and  why  men  threatened 
to  destroy  all  government  and  to  reduce  infernal  order  to 
chaos  : 

"The  standard  of  public  morality  in  Russia  has  already 
sunk  so  low  that  we  tremble  for  the  future  of  our  country. 
Bribery  is  common  throughout  the  government  service, 
and  has  even  found  its  way  into  the  Senate.  The  na- 
tional treasury  is  robbed,  and  national  property  is  dis- 
tributed right  and  left  to  the  unworthy  favorites  of  the 
government.  If  we  were  to  relate  all,  it  would  disgust 
and  tire  our  readers.  We  repeat  that  such  a  state  of  things 
cannot  exist  much  longer.  .  .  .  What  is  the  use  of  com- 


2/4  KING   MAMMON. 

plaints  that  people  are  hanged  for  the  mere  expression  of 
political  opinions  contrary  to  those  of  the  government  ? 
What  is  the  use  of  crying  for  help  in  the  streets  when  we 
are  attacked  and  ill-treated  by  the  police  ?  Nobody  stirs 
—nobody  protests.  .  .  .  These  savages  hang  our  friends, 
who  are  an  honor  to  Russia  ;  who  love  liberty,  and  who 
devote  their  lives  to  the  propagation  of  humanitarian  and 
fraternal  ideas.  .  .  .  You  blame  us  and  get  frightened  when 
we  happen  to  kill  one  of  these  rascals.  Why,  then,  do 
you  remain  silent  when  we  are  kept  for  years  in  prison 
without  trial,  separated  from  our  parents,  our  wives, 
and  our  children,  whom  we  have  to  abandon  to  their 
fate,  and  often  without  means  of  subsistence.  We  are 

foaded  to  madness  and  entombed  alive  in  the  mines  of 
iberia,  and  yet  you  all  cry  out  when  you  see  Menzen- 
stoff  fall  dead  in  the  street.  ...  Do  not  be  surprised  at  these 
political  assassinations,  but  rather  be  astonished  that 
they  are  not  more  frequent.  'Unfortunately  for  our 
cause,  the  majority  of  Nihilists  are  too  humanitarian, 
and  hence  incapable  of  carrying  out  many  necessary 
measures." 

Thus,  it  will  be  seen,  there  are  two  types  of  the  anar- 
chist, one  in  whom  hope  for  the  future  predominates  over 
hatred  of  the  present,  and  another  in  whom  intense 
loathing  for  existing  injustice  and  inequality  suppresses 
every  other  feeling.  In  the  destructive  anarchist,  love  of 
liberty  has  run  mad.  Philosophic  anarchism,  separated 
from  the  insanely  destructive  ideas  which  a  few  adherents 
preach  and  practice,  is  an  elevated  and  beautiful  concep- 
tion of  social  order  existing  without  compulsion  among 
human  beings,  who  to  conform  to  that  existence  must  be 
raised  far  above  all  merely  brutal  tendencies  and  instincts 
into  a  mental  and  moral  condition  nearly  perfect,  so  that 
each  governs  himself  and  shapes  his  actions  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  absolute  liberty  without  wronging  in  the  slight- 
est degree  any  other  human  being.  It  is  not  a  licentious 
creed  that  would  remove  all  restraints  upon  the  wicked 
that  they  may  commit  crimes  with  impunity,  but  a  reli- 


KING   MAMMON.  275 

gion  whose  God  is  perfected  human  nature,  and  whose 
enthusiastic  devotees  are  animated  by  a  sublime  faith  in 
the  object  of  their  devotion,  which  leads  them  to  con- 
stantly urge  that  all  men  will  eventually  govern  them- 
selves without  laws,  and  then  do  right  because  it  t's  right, 
without  the  intervention  of  laws,  policemen,  judges, 
prisons,  and  hangmen.  The  more  enthusiastic  anarchists 
believe  that  even  now  people  would  be  better  and  happier 
if  many  of  our  laws  were  blotted  from  the  statute  books. 
Noting  this  phase  of  the  belief,  a  recent  writer '  says  : 

"Anarchists  believe  there  should  be  no  government ;  by 
which  they  mean  no  government  by  physical  force ;  no 
government  to  prevent  persons  from  thinking,  saying,  or 
doing  what  they  should  be  free  to  think,  say,  or  do  ;  no 
government  for  the  encouragement  of  those  who  invade 
what  should  be  the  rights  of  others,  with  the  protection  of 
such  invaders ;  no  government  to  authorize  a  few  to 
monopolize  what  should  be  the  opportunities  of  all  ;  no 
government  to  compel  persons  to  do  what  they  should  be 
free  to  refuse  to  do,  what  it  is  not  necessary  for  the  good  of 
all  that  they  should  do  ;  no  government  in  favor  of  one 
class  as  against  another  class  ;  no  government  to  enrich 
the  idle  by  impoverishing  the  industrious.  They  believe 
there  should  be  no  government  that  interferes  with 
wholesome  individual  liberty  and  wealth-producing  ex- 
ertion. But  they  believe  in  well-ordered  society,  in  which 
the  wise,  the  just,  the  good  will  rule  by  precepts,  princi- 
ples, and  examples,  in  which  healthful  public  opinion 
will  utter  and  morally  enforce  everything  needful  for  re- 
straint or  encouragement.  They  believe  in  government, 
but  not  government  by  physical  force  for  the  injury  of 
all,  or,  to  use  a  common  expression  which  means  the 
same,  for  unjust  purposes.  They  believe  in  self-control 
and  mutuality." 

Of  the  philosophic  anarchists  the  same  author  again 
writes  : 

1  Hugh  O.  Pentecost — "  Sociology." 


2/6  KING   MAMMON. 

11  Anarchists  do  not  fight  with  bombs,  but  with  books  ; 
not  with  pistols,  but  with  pens.  They  are  not  thugs  ; 
they  are  thinkers.  Not  powder,  but  persuasion  is  their 
weapon.  Not  by  cannon,  but  by  convictions,  do  they 
hope  to  win." 

Following  out  their  lines  of  thought,  the  scientific  anar- 
chists urge  that  society  has  already  progressed  beyond 
the  need  of  many  laws  that  were  once  deemed  necessary. 
For  instance,  laws  once  regulated  the  styles  of  clothing, 
the  prices  of  bread,  meat,  and  beer,  and  even  the  rates  of 
wages.  Combinations  of  all  kinds  to  change  wages  were 
made  a  felony,  and  both  employer  and  employes  were 
punishable.  The  anarchists  claim  that  their  principles 
have  been  observed  in  the  abandonment  of  these  foolish 
laws,  and  they  maintain  that  many  of  our  present  laws 
are  equally  foolish  and  injurious,  and  that  they  also  can 
easily  be  abandoned. 

In  regard  to  social  conduct,  the  anarchists  contend 
that  public  opinion  already  restrains  all  kinds  of  offensive 
individual  behavior  in  public  and  private  assemblages, 
where  only  the  ordinary  rules  of  social  intercourse  con- 
trol people,  and  they  think  the  same  principle  of  socially 
ostracising  offensive  persons  would  control  them  in 
other  cases  more  effectually  than  laws  do.  For  instance, 
it  is  an  anarchist  theory,  believed  by  many  people  who 
are  not  anarchists  in  other  respects,  that  society  would 
be  better  off  if  all  laws  for  the  collection  of  debts  were 
repealed,  and  debtors  placed  squarely  upon  their  personal 
honesty,  with  the  certain  penalty,  under  such  circum- 
stances, of  a  complete  loss  of  social  position  and  recog- 
nition, to  say  nothing  of  business  credit  if  they  proved 
recreant  to  the  trust.  The  anarchist  believes  that  all 
force-government  is  necessarily  evil.  If  he  is  a  conser- 
vative anarchist,  he  desires  that  society  shall  grow  peace- 
ably out  of  a  government  by  force,  with  its  injustice  and 


KING   MAMMON.  277 

inequality,  to  a  better  self-government  without  the  dom- 
ination of  authority.  If  he  is  a  radical  anarchist  he 
proposes  in  a  misdirected  enthusiasm  to  blast  society 
into  the  happy  future  with  immense  charges  of  dynamite, 
as  a  means  of  advertising  his  good  intentions,  and  attract- 
ing the  attention  of  the  dormant  people  surrounding  him 
to  the  iniquity  of  the  social  institutions  they  maintain. 
Both  the  methods  of  "the  book  and  the  bomb"  are  said 
to  be  educational,  but  they  are  different  kinds  of  educa- 
tion ;  and  the  latter  form  is  not  highly  appreciated  by 
those  who  have  not  yet  reached  the  conclusions  of  the 
destructive  anarchist. 

The  consistent  anarchist  will  not  vote  or  otherwise  par- 
ticipate in  law-making,  for  it  would  be  absurd  in  him  to 
assist  in  doing  what  he  declares  is  absolutely  wrong. 
As  Mr.  Pentecost  says,  the  only  thing  he  really  wants  to 
vote  for  is  the  abolition  of  all  existing  laws.  He  asserts 
that  even  if  he  were  one  of  a  majority,  he  would  not,  if 
he  could,  impose  his  will  upon  another  man  in  the  minor- 
ity. His  theory  is  that  every  man  shall  do  as  he  pleases, 
except  that  he  must  respect  the  same  right  of  self-control 
in  all  his  associates.  When  the  conflicting  desires  of 
men  thus  associated  can  be  reconciled  by  a  universally 
correct  opinion  of  right  and  wrong,  then  the  anarchist's 
heaven  on  earth  will  be  complete. 

At  present  the  optimistic  anarchist  considers  earth  a 
hell *  which  is  being  slowly  modified  by  the  right  kind  of 

1  Some  of  Kropotkin's  impassioned  utterances,  more  violent  than 
those  quoted,  are  as  follows :  "  Burn  the  guillotines ;  demolish  the 
prisons  ;  drive  away  the  judges,  policemen, and  informers — the  impurest 
race  on  the  face  of  the  earth ;  treat  as  a  brother  the  man  who  has  been 
led  by  passion  to  do  ill  to  his  brother;  above  all,  take  from  the  ignoble 
products  of  middle  class  idleness  the  possibility  of  displaying  their  vices 
in  attractive  colors;  and  be  sure  that  but  few  crimes  will  mar  our 
society.  The  main  supports  of  crime  are  idleness,  law,  and  authority ; 
laws  about  property,  laws  about  government,  laws  about  penalties  and 
misdemeanors ;  and  authority  which  takes  upon  itself  to  manufacture 
these  laws  and  to  apply  them.  No  more  laws!  No  more  judges! 


278  KING   MAMMON. 

progress  ;  while  his  pessimistic  associate,  believing  that 
its  wickedness  is  unconquerable  by  pacific  measures, 
proposes  to  assist  Nature  somewhat  by  blowing  her  hid- 
eous creation  into  nothingness  and  permitting  her  to 
commence  another  attempt  at  perfection.  The  anarchist, 
then,  is  an  extreme  individualist,  who  may  be  called  the 
negative  pole  of  the  current  of  social  thought,  while  the 
socialist  is  the  positive  pole  ;  and  as  extremes  meet,  so 
these  two  classes  have  a  common  ground  of  belief  in  the 
economic  advantages  of  co-operative  social  effort.  Their 
ideas  of  government  are  directly  opposed  to  each  other, 
one  wanting  much  government  and  the  other  none,  but 
as  they  agree  in  denouncing  the  present  capitalistic  sys- 
tem, with  its  rents,  interest,  and  profits,  and  also  agree  in 
desiring  communistic  association  of  labor,  the  anarchist 
is  often  classed  as  a  socialist,  without  any  conception  of 
his  real  ideas  or  the  nature  of  his  belief  on  the  part  of 
those  describing  him.  The  socialist  desires  to  convert 
the  state  into  a  huge  communal  productive  machine, 
under  general  laws  regulating  the  hours  of  labor,  prices, 
system  of  exchange,  and  all  the  minutiae  of  daily  existence 
on  a  system  of  equality  ;  but  the  anarchist  considers  that 
kind  of  existence  a  horribly  tyrannical  prospect,  and  pre- 
fers the  present,  which  he  would  modify  by  abolishing 
laws  and  governmental  officers  and  by  organizing  society 
into  communal  groups  in  voluntary  association.  In  a 
comparison  drawn  from  the  principles  of  physics,  social- 
ism is  a  solid  in  which  the  particles  possess  an  intense 
attraction  and  cohesion,  while  anarchism,  in  human 
nature  of  the  present,  at  least,  is  a  gas  in  which  the  par- 
ticles tend  to  wander  into  an  infinity  of  space,  free  from 
the  control  of  any  other  particle.  In  the  present  develop- 

Liberty  and  equality  and  practical  human  sympathy  are  the  only  effect- 
ual barriers  we  can  oppose  to  the  anti-social  instincts  of  certain  men 
among  us." 


KING   MAMMON.  2/9 

ment  of  the  human  race  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  society 
based  on  the  ideas  of  anarchism,  in  which  more  than  one 
anarchist  exists  at  the  same  instant.  To  accomplish 
the  ideals  of  anarchism  we  need  a  better  human  race  or 
else  more  worlds  in  which  to  place  men  free  from  inter- 
ference. 

In  spite  of  its  inadaptability  to  human  nature  of  the 
present  day,  there  is  something  grand  in  the  aspirations 
of  scientific  anarchism,  and  something  sublime  in  the 
faith  its  adherents  exhibit  in  weak,  struggling  human 
nature,  slowly  shaking  off  the  brute  instincts  and  gross 
hereditary  taints  that  have  come  down  upon  it  from  the  dis- 
mal shades  of  the  past.  Few  of  us  there  are  who  will  not 
hope  that  in  his  view  of  the  future  the  anarchist  may  be 
right,  and  that  men  of  that  day  may  neither  think,  nor 
feel,  nor  act  as  our  ancestors  have  done  in  the  past,  nor 
as  we  are  doing  in  the  present. 

It  is  easy  for  a  close  observer  who  will  patiently  think, 
to  comprehend  the  apparently  unnatural  feelings  of  the 
destructive  anarchists  when  they  deliberately  throw  their 
lives  away  in  the  perpetration  of  some  crime,  shocking 
with  its  enormity  the  whole  civilized  world,  as  in  the 
recent  assassination  of  the  president  of  France.  Such 
anarchists  are  invariably  warm-hearted  men  of  strong 
sympathies,  bitter  hatred  of  class  distinctions,  and  intense 
aversion  to  the  dictation  of  authority.  The  whole  system 
of  anarchism  revolves  about  the  central  thought  of  abso- 
lute liberty  and  freedom  from  the  control  of  any  other 
human  being.  Having  this  nature  to  begin  with,  and  being 
usually  possessed  of  much  intelligence  of  that  reflective 
kind  which  always  causes  men  to  mature  mentally  late 
in  life,  to  be  ridiculed  in  their  youth,  and  sometimes 
pronounced  dullards  because  they  are  not  imitative,  the 
embryo  anarchist  is  to  some  extent  naturally  unfitted  for 
the  practical  efforts  and  duties  of  life  as  required  by  the 


280  KING   MAMMON. 

competitive  system,  in  which  a  very  ordinary  intellect, 
united  with  imitativeness,  adaptability  to  circumstances, 
and  a  prompt  and  agreeable  subservience  to  authority, 
is  the  most  efficient  factor  in  securing  promotion  to 
that  moderate  success  which  most  men  achieve.  The  un- 
fortunate temperament  of  the  natural  anarchist,  and  some- 
times an  equally  unfortunate  environment,  usually  causes 
repeated  failures  in  his  early  life-efforts  under  competition, 
and  his  keen,  reflective  intellect  seeks  for  the  cause  be- 
neath the  mere  surface  of  social  conditions  usually  touched 
by  his  shallower,  but  often  more  successful,  associates. 
It  is  not  at  all  difficult  for  any  man  who  will  candidly 
investigate  society  to  find  injustice  in  the  social  structure, 
and  when  the  young  anarchist  discovers  it  there,  he  de- 
nounces this  injustice  as  the  cause  of  all  his  suffering 
and  supposed  wrongs.  He  observes  the  misery  of  the  poor, 
side  by  side  with  the  ostentatious  luxury  of  the  rich,  and 
with  the  chivalrous  sympathy  that  always  characterizes 
such  stormy,  rebellious  natures,  he  immediately  becomes 
the  avowed  champion  of  the  weaker,  and  like  Don  Quix- 
ote de  la  Mancha,  he  is  ready  to  battle  with  every  wind- 
mill that  he  finds  in  his  way  in  order  to  assist  the  poor 
and  oppressed  of  the  whole  world  ;  for  the  sympathies  of 
the  genuine  anarchist  extend  to  all  human  beings  except 
those  who  are  in  authority.  It  is  not  a  selfish  crusade, 
for  no  anarchist  has  anything  but  death  or  imprisonment 
to  expect  as  punishment  if  he  is  arrested,  and  nothing  per- 
sonally beneficial  to  gain  if  he  escapes.  He  is  invariably, 
from  his  point  of  view,  trying  to  startle  society  into  a 
comprehension  of  the  evils  in  its  own  existence,  in  the 
hope  that  a  change  for  the  better  may  result  in  the  relief 
of  the  downtrodden  people  of  the  world  as  he  sees  it,  and 
he  literally  throws  his  life  away  to  aid  what  he  believes  to 
be  a  great  and  just  cause.  Whether  his  methods  do  or  do 
not  accomplish  what  he  hopes  for,  his  motives  are  in 


KING   MAMMON.  28 1 

many  cases  the  same  that  led  Jesus  Christ  to  the  cross  ; 
for,  like  the  Saviour,  the  genuine  anarchist  is  inspired  by 
an  abounding  love  for  humanity,  and  an  intense  aversion 
towards  the  tyranny  and  luxury  of  wealth.  His  faith  in 
the  perfectibility  of  human  nature  is  his  religion,  and  like 
many  another  devotee  in  the  past,  he  becomes  a  fanatic 
who  believes  that  what  he  is  other  men  may  be  if  they 
will,  and  that  what  average  human  nature  may  do  some 
day  in  the  future  it  can  do  now.  Therefore,  being  a  fa- 
natic, he  sacrifices  his  life  in  the  supposed  interests  of  his 
religion,  and  dull  men  look  on  and  wonder  what  strange 
animal  thus  chooses  to  die  when  he  might  easily  live. 
The  Nihilists  who  assassinated  the  Czar  of  Russia  did  so 
knowing  that  their  temerity  involved  certain  death.  They 
made  no  attempt  whatever  to  escape,  and  deliberately 
died  for  what  they  believed  was  the  good  of  humanity. 
Even  the  most  careless  observer  of  these  social  phenom- 
ena ought  to  realize  that  when  a  young,  handsome,  in- 
telligent lady  of  gentle  life  and  breeding,  like  Sophie 
Peroffskaya,  deliberately  sacrifices  her  life  for  principle, 
the  circumstance  involves  something  more  than  mere 
brutal  destruction. 

The  beginning  of  the  anarchist's  thought  and  feeling 
can  be  experienced  by  any  strongly  sympathetic  man 
who  views  a  contest  in  which  the  weaker  struggles  vainly 
against  a  tremendous  comparative  power,  and  is  in  the 
end  badly  and  cruelly  defeated.  The  contest  may  only  be 
a  schoolboy  struggle,  or  even  a  fight  between  curs  in  the 
street,  if  the  elements  of  disproportionate  strength  are  not 
lacking.  The  sympathetic  observer  in  such  cases  feels  a 
tide  of  hot  indignation  swelling  over  him,  and  a  fierce 
desire,  sometimes  absurdly  inappropriate  to  the  apparent 
importance  of  the  conflict,  to  seize  the  victor  and  punish 
him  adequately  to  the  oppression  which  he  has  accom- 
plished by  his  superior  strength.  So  the  anarchist  views 


282  KING   MAMMON. 

society.  All  our  existence  is  a  contest,  and  the  losers, 
whatever  be  the  causes  of  their  defeat,  often  cruelly  suffer. 
Those  who  from  inherent  strength  or  accidental  good 
fortune  become  successful,  too  frequently  tyrannize  over 
their  weaker  associates  with  unnecessary  severity.  The 
anarchist,  with  his  bombs  and  his  torch,  is  really  the  over- 
enthusiastic  champion  of  the  under  dogs  in  the  battle 
of  human  existence,  and  he  knowingly  fights  against  tre- 
mendous odds  ;  for,  like  the  traditional  Irishman  and  his 
wife,  who  were  interrupted  in  the  exchange  of  domestic 
amenities  by  a  champion  of  the  woman,  both  the  victor 
and  the  vanquished  in  the  battle  of  human  life  usually 
turn  upon  the  poor  anarchist  and  crucify  him  for  meddling 
in  the  fray.  People  of  the  present  still  enjoy  righting  one 
another.  Fanatics  never  accept  advice,  but  if  the  de- 
structive anarchists  would  follow  the  example  of  more 
sensible  folk,  who  never  interfere  in  the  domestic  quarrels 
of  an  Irish  family,  and  would  let  savage,  warring  human- 
ity continue  to  fight  in  the  struggle  of  human  existence 
till  the  race  naturally  loses  more  of  its  brutality  by  the 
progress  of  successive  generations,  undisturbed  by  their 
well-meant  interference,  the  result  would  in  the  end  be 
accomplished  quite  as  expeditiously  and  with  less  suffering 
to  themselves. 

Every  age  in  this  world  judges  its  own  people  and  in- 
stitutions very  differently  from  the  verdict  rendered  by 
succeeding  ages.  Men  do  not  now  regard  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  as  other  men  did  when  they  established  it. 
Flogging  one's  wife  at  the  present  time  is  not  what  the 
same  act  was  five  hundred  years  ago.  Death  by  torture 
is  not  now  the  appropriate  means  of  terminating  an  exist- 
ence that  it  formerly  was.  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  men  of  the 
present  age,  is  a  being  quite  different  from  the  one  who 
was  scoffed  at  and  reviled,  tortured  and  crucified,  by  a 
populace  determined  to  exist  under  their  own  ideas  of  life 


KING    MAMMON.  283 

and  not  according  to  His  teachings.  There  will  come 
a  time,  perhaps,  when,  if  the  records  of  our  present  history 
be  preserved,  the  anarchists  of  the  present,  cursed  and 
reviled  by  their  contemporaries,  will  be  regarded  then  as 
the  sturdy  and  self-sacrificing  pioneers  of  a  new  civiliza- 
tion and  a  new  advance  in  social  morality.  Some  day, 
and  perhaps  not  very  far  in  the  future,  men  may  regard 
our  own  anarchists  of  Chicago,  dying  with  the  cry  of 
"Listen  to  the  voice  of  the  people"  upon  their  lips,  as 
men  more  to  be  pitied  than  blamed,  when  their  real  char- 
acter and  the  nature  of  their  environment  is  thoroughly 
understood,  as  only  the  moral  light  of  the  future  can 
reveal  it. 

The  anarchist  is  a  man  whose  moral  sentiments  are 
many  years  in  advance  of  the  average  sentiment  by  which 
he  is  surrounded.  He  judges  our  social  institutions  by 
the  ethics  of  the  future  instead  of  the  ethics  of  the  present. 
He  shocks  and  horrifies  society  because  he  understands 
neither  its  slow  growth,  nor  its  habitual  conservatism,  nor 
the  impossibility  of  its  institutions  becoming  any  better 
than  the  men  who  make  them.  He  does  not  even  under- 
stand his  own  nature  or  comprehend  that  he  is  mentally 
and  morally  living  in  the  future  instead  of  the  present, 
when  the  very  fact  that  men  generally  reject  his  ideas 
indicates  that  he  is  too  far  in  advance  of  them. 

If  the  anarchist  understood  these  truths,  he  would  com- 
prehend, what  it  is  to  be  feared  that  but  few  people, 
whether  reformers  or  not,  thoroughly  understand  :  that, 
no  matter  what  form  of  government  or  no-government 
exists  in  any  country,  be  it  China,  Russia,  England,  the 
United  States,  or  even  the  ideal  anarchist  community 
wherein  no  laws,  judges,  and  policemen  are  to  be  found, 
the  social  institutions  will  inevitably  and  invariably  ex- 
press the  moral  sentiments  and  desires  of  the  majority — 
if  not  the  majority  of  actual  numbers,  at  least  the  majority 


284  KING    MAMMON. 

of  power,  which,  in  the  final  contest  for  a  decision  by 
appeal  to  brute  force,  is  usually  and  naturally  the  majority 
of  numbers.  There  is  a  queer  assumption  apparent  in  the 
works  of  many  writers,  that  some  kinds  of  government  are 
imposed  upon  the  many  by  the  few  without  the  consent  and 
approval  of  the  masses  of  the  people.  In  the  conception 
of  such  writers,  a  despotism  is  the  work  of  a  small, 
privileged  class  in  a  nation,  who  seize  the  power  and  who 
hold  it  in  tyranny  over  the  common  people  in  spite  of 
their  protestations  and  resistance.  We  prate  of  our  own 
"government  by  the  majority  "  as  though  it  were  some- 
thing peculiar  to  a  republic,  and  congratulate  ourselves 
that  this  form  of  government  is  essentially  different  from 
older  types.  Prince  Kropotkin  is  evidently  impressed 
with  the  idea  that  some  countries  are  not  ruled  by  the 
majority  when  he  says,  "It  is  becoming  understood  that 
majority  rule  is  as  defective  as  any  other  kind  of  rule," 
as  though  some  other  kind  of  government  not  really  the 
rule  of  a  majority  had  ever  existed,  The  same  fallacy 
appears  in  the  writings  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  one  of  the 
greatest  thinkers  and  purest  patriots  of  his  age,  when  he 
contended  that  at  times  it  was  necessary  to  fertilize  the 
earth  with  the  blood  of  tyrants  that  the  seeds  of  liberty 
might  grow,  for  he  evidently  thought  that  the  responsibil- 
ity for  bad  institutions  devolved  upon  the  few  and  not 
upon  the  many.  The  same  idea  is  to  be  found  in  the 
writings  of  a  hundred  other  prominent  men,  where  it  is 
assumed  that  the  expression  of  public  sentiment  by  vot- 
ing is  something  radically  different  in  its  nature  from 
more  primitive  forms  of  government,  so  that  in  contra- 
distinction it  may  be  called  the  control  of  the  majority. 

The  truth  is  that  all  government,  however  constituted, 
whether  it  be  despotic  or  liberal,  no  matter  whether  the 
people  do  or  do  not  vote,  is  the  government  of  the  ma- 
jority, and  all  government  must  ever  be  so  conducted. 


KING   MAMMON.  285 

Russia's  government  is  despotic  and  China's  institutions 
are  brutal,  because  the  majority  of  their  people  are 
despotic  and  brutal.  South  America's  republics  do  not 
afford  really  good  government,  because  the  people  who 
live  under  them  cannot  make  institutions  any  better  than 
themselves,  no  matter  what  the  form,  and  the  masses  of 
the  people  in  those  countries  are  still  barbarians  only 
recently  descended  from  the  undeveloped  Indian  races. 
We  of  the  United  States  complain  of  corrupt  government 
that  we  see  around  and  over  us,  yet  those  institutions, 
with  all  their  monopoly,  fraudulence,  and  bribery,  are 
an  emanation  from  ourselves — from  the  majority  that 
rules  this  country  exactly  as  every  other  country  is  ruled. 
Our  legislatures,  our  municipal  boards,  and  our  congress 
are  samples  of  the  people  quite  as  good  and  no  better 
than  the  mass  of  public  sentiment  that  sustains  the  pur- 
suit of  wealth  by  methods  that  a  later  progress  and  a 
more  highly  developed  moral  sense  among  the  people 
themselves  will  ultimately  condemn  and  abolish. 

The  people  do  not  vote  in  a  despotism,  but,  neverthe- 
less, they  adopt  and  sustain  that  form  of  government 
themselves  ;  it  is  not  thrust  upon  them  by  any  other 
power  than  their  own  wills  and  their  own  defective 
moral  sentiments.  Tyranny  accompanies  the  institutions 
of  uncivilized  races  because  barbaric  man  is  a  tyrant  in 
heart  and  mind,  universally  among  rich  and  poor,  and  he 
cannot  comprehend  the  principles  of  liberty,  equality,  and 
fraternity.  For  him,  no  other  government  than  a  des- 
potism, be  it  in  the  form  of  a  republic  or  a  monarchy,  is 
possible  ;  for  he  is  a  brutal  tyrant  at  heart,  and  he  will 
be  a  brutal  tyrant  in  his  manners  and  customs,  his  re- 
ligions and  his  laws.  The  people  of  every  nation  have 
the  power  of  making  changes  in  their  institutions,  but 
the  tyranny  of  their  ancient  savage  existence 
remains  with  them  till  the  slow  development  of  the 


286  KING   MAMMON. 

moral  sentiments  awakens  new  feelings  of  duty  one 
to  another,  and  then  the  habiliments  of  the  past 
fall  away  like  the  lower  branches  of  a  great  forest 
tree  in  its  own  progress  towards  the  blue  sky  above  it. 
A  cruel,  despotic  government,  characterized  by  long 
terms  of  imprisonment  and  sanguinary  executions  for 
political  offenses,  is  merely  the  outward  sign  of  a  people 
whose  character  is  the  same.  The  sale  and  purchase 
of  votes,  the  bribery,  and  the  influence  of  money  in  all 
the  legislation  of  this  country  are  merely  the  symptoms 
of  a  public  sentiment  which  has  made  of  money  a  God, 
and  worshiped  its  accumulation  in  the  press,  the  pulpit, 
the  home,  and  the  halls  of  justice.  The  greed  for  wealth 
has  been  the  characteristic  feature  of  modern  civilization, 
and  it  is  finding  its  natural  expression  in  the  social  cus- 
toms and  legislation  of  the  people.  Whether  this  wild 
spirit  of  accumulation  for  its  own  sake  can  be  controlled 
by  more  rational  ideas  remains  to  be  seen,  but  our  laws 
will  only  change  after  a  changed  sentiment  exists  among 
the  people,  and  to  that  higher  sentiment  this  book  ap- 
peals. 

In  every  stage  of  development  among  every  people,  a 
few  men  exist  whose  moral  sentiment  in  the  feeling  of 
duty  toward  fellow-creatures,  is  immeasurably  in  advance 
of  the  usual  spirit  displayed  by  their  associates.  Some  of 
the  mysterious  principles  of  heredity  doubtless  form  the 
unusual  development  of  character,  but,  whatever  be  the 
cause,  life  for  such  men  is  misery.  Living  in  the  future, 
so  far  as  their  inner  convictions  are  concerned,  they  can- 
not understand  the  present,  and  their  condition  is  like  that 
of  an  average  man  of  the  present  era  would  be  were  he 
compelled  to  pass  the  remainder  of  his  existence  among  the 
savage  tribes  of  Africa,  and  not  know  that  he  was  morally 
in  advance  of  those  people.  No  people  existing  under  the 
same  laws  are  equally  civilized.  It  is  useless  for  the 


KING   MAMMON.  287 

foremost  in  ethical  development  to  preach  and  pray  for 
reforms  or  changes  greatly  in  advance  of  the  average 
thought  and  feeling,  for  government  rests  ultimately  on 
physical  power,  and  that  power  is  with  the  majority,  no 
matter  what  we  may  say,  or  do,  or  believe. 

Therefore,  the  people  of  the  present  will  continue  to 
hang  the  destructive  anarchists  and  laugh  at  the  scientific 
theorists,  for  as  an  average  body  of  human  beings  they 
are  not-capable  of  existing  without  laws  or  of  governing 
themselves,  and  treating  one  another  justly ;  and  they 
know  it.  The  great  fallacy  of  the  anarchists  is  their  sup- 
position that  the  people  of  any  country  are  any  better 
or  any  worse  for  their  laws.  It  is  the  old,  old  mistake  of 
substituting  effect  for  cause,  and  thinking  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  people  is  altogether  due  to  their  laws,  instead 
of  the  nature  of  the  laws  being  due  to  the  condition  of 
the  people.  To  me  the  saddest  thing  in  the  creed  of  the 
destructive  anarchist  is  his  unswerving  faith  in  the  wor- 
thiness of  the  poor,  and  his  extreme  hostility  against  the 
wealthy  and  powerful,  under  the  delusion  that  the  few 
are  to  blame  for  tyrannizing  the  many.  He  does  not  per- 
ceive that  the  responsibility  belongs  to  all  classes,  and  that 
the  beggar  would  often  be  a  greater  tyrant  than  the  mil- 
lionaire, if  he  had  the  wealth.  Nor  does  he  understand 
that  the  real  reason  why  men  of  the  present  do  not  co- 
operate, and  why  they  resent  interference  (like  the  Irish- 
man and  his  wife)  is  because  they  enjoy  fighting  with 
one  another,  and  believe  fighting  is  morally  correct.  Dis- 
regarding the  fact  that  the  worst  conditions  of  the  present 
merely  indicate  that  the  people  are  not  so  good  as  they 
ought  to  be  and  will  be,  the  radical  anarchist  is  usually 
not  content  with  those  gradual  changes  in  public  senti- 
ment which  constitute  the  only  true  reform,  and  he  relies 
too  implicitly  on  the  delusive  idea  of  a  sudden  transform- 
ation. 


288  KING   MAMMON. 

This  being  the  nature  of  anarchism,  is  it  not  evident 
that  propositions  seen  so  frequently  now  in  the  press  of 
this  country,  urging  that  anarchists  should  be  prevented 
from  migrating  to  the  United  States,  display  an  absurd 
conception  of  the  social  question  ?  Anarchism  is  devel- 
oped in  every  country  by  the  changing  thought  of  its 
people.  It  is  not  imported  like  salt  or  sugar  from  foreign 
nations  ;  it  comes  and  will  continue  to  come  out  of  our 
own  people  when  their  most  daring  pioneers  become 
dissatisfied  with  existing  institutions,  and  cry  for  change. 
Thomas  Jefferson  expressed  many  principles  of  anarchism 
in  his  utterances  during  the  early  history  of  this  nation, 
yet  he  is  revered  as  the  father  of  our  democratic  institu- 
tions and  the  faithful  champion  of  liberty.  In  the  strike 
of  1894  there  were  many  excited  men  who,  suspecting 
that  the  national  power  was  to  be  used  to  protect  mo- 
nopolies, began  to  denounce  the  government.  The  real 
anarchism  which  the  people  of  the  United  States  need  to 
fear  is  not  any  imported  European  form,  but  the  fierce 
discontent  among  our  own  people,  who  are  beginning  to 
comprehend  inequitable  conditions  and  to  adopt  new 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  without  knowing  what  they 
should  do  to  make  their  social  institutions  conform  to 
the  new  moral  sentiment.  The  right  way  to  repress  the 
growth  of  destructive  anarchism  of  this  kind  is  not  by 
fencing  out  foreign  emissaries  and  imprisoning  men  for 
anything  except  actual  crimes,  for  such  feelings  were 
never  yet  in  all  the  history  of  the  world  repressed  or  les- 
sened by  brute  force,  but  by  adopting  gradual  changes 
in  our  institutions  to  comply  with  the  changing  thought 
of  the  people. 

All  government  is  alike  in  being  the  dicta  of  a  majority, 
but  the  best  government  is  that  which  frequently  and 
faithfully  reflects  the  real  opinion  and  sentiment  of  that 
majority,  and  which  enables  the  people  to  quietly  and 


KING   MAMMON.  289 

peaceably  express  their  ever-changing  ideas  of  right  and 
wrong  in  their  social  institutions,  without  being  compelled 
to  resort  to  the  savage  tactics  of  armed  revolution  and 
brute  force.  From  the  beginning  of  human  existence  to 
its  termination,  the  people  surge  onward,  changing  day 
by  day  their  thoughts  ;  year  by  year  their  laws  ;  century 
by  century  their  religions  and  their  Gods. x  Woe  to  the 
poor  weakling,  imbued  with  the  pride  of  temporary  posi- 
tion or  power,  who  would  stay  their  progress  by  an  ap- 
peal to  the  worn-out  and  discarded  institutions  of  the 
past.  Let  him  not  try  to  bind  his  fellow-creatures  with 
precedents  and  decisions,  ancient  customs  and  paper  con- 
stitutions, inflicting  the  tyranny  of  the  past  upon  the  prog- 
ress of  the  present ;  for,  be  they  right  or  be  they  wrong, 
the  majority  of  this  people  will  rule  in  the  future  as  other 
majorities  have  ruled  in  the  past,  and  obstruction  to  the 
popular  will  means  bloodshed.  In  the  education  and 
direction  of  public  sentiment  and  not  in  its  repression  lies 
the  only  safety  for  those  in  power. 


Such  being,  in  brief,  the  nature  of  socialistic  theories  and 

1  The  God  of  the  ancient  Hebrews,  worshiped  5000  years  ago,  is 
quite  accurately  described  in  slang  phrase  as  "  a  holy  terror."  He  was 
a  powerful,  vindictive,  capricious,  bloodthirsty  tyrant,  who  felt  neither 
love,  mercy,  nor  justice.  He  punished  disobedience  among  his  people, 
of  whom  he  unjustly  made  favorites,  by  opening  chasms  in  the  earth  to 
kill  hundreds  of  them  ;  by  destroying  thousands  with  a  plague  ;  by  send- 
ing  fiery  serpents  among  them.  He  was  a  jealous,  demon  who  an- 
nounced himself  as  a  "  consuming  fire,"  and  who  assisted  his  favorite 
people  to  slaughter  men  unmercifully,  to  enslave  their  women  and  burn 
their  cities.  Three  thousand  years  later  this  ideal  of  perfection  had 
greatly  improved.  Some  conception  of  charity  and  justice  appear  in 
his  utterances,  but  he  still  maintained  a  hell  in  which  he  proposed  to 
eternally  roast  those  of  his  creatures  who  rashly  died  without  believing 
in  his  infinite  love  and  mercy.  The  later  progress  of  2000  years  has 
still  further  civilized  this  originally  sanguinary  being;  but  as  water 
never  rises  higher  than  its  source,  so  the  Gods  of  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury are  no  better  than  the  best  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  nobler  men 
and  women  who  have  replaced  their  savage  ancestry. 


2QO  KING   MAMMON. 

ideals,  how  shall  we  define  socialism  ?  It  assumes  many 
slightly  divergent  forms  of  belief,  but  in  all  of  them  social- 
ism is  the  antagonist  of  our  competitive  life,  and  in  this 
fact  is  found  its  essential  nature.  Socialism  is  the  de- 
struction of  competition,  and  the  amount  of  socialism  in- 
volved in  any  proposed  law  is  measured  by  the  amount 
of  private  competitive  effort  that  it  displaces,  for  the  in- 
variable theory  of  socialism  is  that  people  are  to  labor 
together  as  partners  instead  of  working  individually  as 
competitors.  Judged  by  this  standard,  is  the  abolishment 
or  restriction  of  bequests  and  inheritances  a  socialistic 
measure  ?  Clearly  it  is  not ;  for  it  makes  all  men  com- 
petitors by  depriving  some  of  them  of  the  wealth  not 
secured  by  their  own  exertions,  and  placing  them  under 
the  necessity  of  exerting  their  brains  and  muscles  in  life- 
effort.  It  displaces  no  competition  or  individual  effort 
whatever,  but  it  substitutes  for  the  lying  and  unjust  com- 
petition of  the  present,  in  which  the  heirs  of  wealth  are 
set  against  the  heirs  of  poverty,  a  fairer  and  more  nearly 
equal  struggle  in  which  every  individual  must  attain  pros- 
perity and  leisure  by  his  own  exertions  and  not  from 
those  of  his  ancestor.  It  will  not  give  to  men  equal 
wealth  for  unequal  effort — the  basis  of  the  present  objec- 
tion to  socialism — nor  will  it  give  immense  wealth  to  a 
comparatively  few  individuals  who  have  made  no  effort 
whatever,  as  under  the  present  social  system  ;  but  it  will 
be  a  change  tending  toward  fairness  in  a  contest  that 
humanity  is  not  yet  prepared  to  abandon,  and  tending 
to  teach  every  human  being  that  social  radiance  must 
emanate  from  his  own  light  and  not  from  the  reflected 
beams  of  his  predecessors,  however  eminent. 

Something  over  one  hundred  years  ago  progressive 
humanity  in  Europe  and  America  attacked  and  abolished 
to  some  extent  the  heredity  of  governmental  and  official 
power,  and  in  the  United  States  our  forefathers  established 


KING   MAMMON.  29! 

a  republic  instead  of  a  monarchy.  In  the  present  move- 
ment the  battle  will  be  fought  over  again  ;  but  the  real 
kings  are  money-kings  now,  and  the  people  will  decide 
whether  they  shall  permit  this  kind  of  power  to  continue 
in  its  present  hereditary  form.  It  is  logical  to  assume 
that  they  will  apply  to  the  money-king  the  same  prin- 
ciples they  have  already  applied  to  the  political-king,  and, 
in  the  end,  neither  permit  him  to  name  his  successor  nor 
permit  the  accident  of  birth  to  designate  their  future  sov- 
ereigns. The  power  of  the  state  and  the  power  of  great 
wealth  must  both  be  subjected  to  the  control  of  the 
people  who  create  them,  and  not  remain  under  the  dicta- 
tion of  individual  desires  nor  the  sport  of  chance. 

The  changes  proposed  in  these  pages  are  not  socialistic, 
for  they  embody  only  the  requirements  of  fair  play  and 
genuine  competition  between  men  who  are  compelled  by 
the  nature  of  our  social  system  to  enter  into  a  conflict, 
and  who,  therefore,  should  have  equal  opportunities  of 
cutting  one  another's  throats.  When  society  shall  refuse 
absolutely,  in  all  cases,  to  give  something  for  nothing  to 
its  individuals,  it  will  be  on  the  high  road  to  genuine  re- 
form. At  present  we  meet  the  slovenly  tramp  at  the  rear 
entrance  to  our  homes  with  frowns  and  suspicion,  de- 
manding that  he  must  work  if  he  would  eat,  meanwhile 
permitting  our  social  affairs  to  fall  into  such  a  condition 
that  no  work  is  to  be  done.  Having  thus  conscientiously 
performed  our  social  duty  in  regard  to  the  tramp,  we 
hasten  to  the  handsome  doorway  at  the  front  to  receive 
with  smiles  and  bows  the  neatly-apparelled  heir,  accord- 
ing to  him  freely  all  the  vast  wealth  he  has  not  earned 
by  labor  any  more  than  the  vagabond  whom  we  kicked 
away  from  the  other  door.  That  adjustment  of  the  right 
to  wealth  and  the  right  to  use  earth  as  a  home  is  not  con- 
sistent and  not  fair.  It  is  not  just.  It  is  lying  hypocrisy 
to  give  all  for  nothing  to  the  rich  man's  child,  and  then 


2Q2  KING   MAMMON. 

drive  the  poor  man's  sons  and  daughters  to  lives  of  desti- 
tution, crime,  and  misery,  when  they  ask  merely  for  an 
opportunity  to  labor  and  to  use  a  portion  of  that  earth 
which  is  our  common  home. 

Latter-day  socialism  is  promulgated  in  many  different 
forms,  one  of  the  most  frequent  being  the  crude  asser- 
tions of  labor-agitators,  who  see  nothing  in  the  problem 
but  capitalists  and  their  employes,  and  who  disregard  the 
great  multitude  of  men  not  particularly  or  prominently 
identified  with  either  class.  This  agitator  heralds  an  im- 
mediate transformation  of  the  nation  into  a  great  com- 
munism as  a  perfectly  feasible  and  happy  solution  of  all 
the  labor  troubles.  In  the  minds  of  such  newly-fledged 
socialists  the  possession  of  wealth  is  the  criterion  by 
which  they  determine  personal  worth.  Like  the  detest- 
able sycophants  who  cringe  under  men  above  them,  and 
tyrannize  over  men  below,  such  socialists  are  also  un- 
just in  judging  men  merely  by  their  stations.  The  syco- 
phant sneers  at  men  in  humble  station*  merely  because 
they  are  poor ;  the  radical  socialist  abuses  wealthy  men 
merely  because  they  have  property.  According  to  his 
notions,  all  but  those  who  perform  physical  labor  are 
parasites  upon  society.  The  employer  is  a  robber  to  the 
extent  of  his  profit  upon  the  service  of  his  laborers.  Rent 
and  interest  are  morally  wrong,  and  their  collection  is  no 
better  than  theft.  The  wealthy  are  responsible  for  all 
the  social  ills,  and  the  poor  remain  in  poverty  solely  from 
oppression.  An  intense  bitterness  pervades  his  denuncia- 
tion of  competition,  society,  religion,  wealth,  capitalists, 
and  profit,  and  there  is  little  appeal  to  any  higher  mo- 
tive than  mere  resentment  in  this  socialistic  creed.  Such 
agitators  are  supposed  by  some  people  unfamiliar  with 
radical  thought  to  be  insane  in  their  delusions ;  and 
others,  unaware  of  the  extent  to  which  such  ideas  have 
developed,  merely  laugh  at  their  denunciations,  oblivi- 


KING  MAMMON.  293 

ous  of  the  real  condition  of  society  and  public  sentiment. 
It  is  ignorance  on  one  side  set  against  ignorance  on 
the  other,  and  therein  lies  the  danger.  Fortunately  the 
thorough  consideration  of  socialism  usually  removes  the 
idea  that  a  sudden  social  transformation  is  possible,  and 
it  also  tends  to  allay  the  bitter  feeling  against  wealthy 
men,  by  convincing  the  thinker  that  such  evils  *as  exist 
are  not  the  fault  of  classes,  but  the  natural  results  of 
a  general  system  of  life-effort  based  upon  man's  existing 
moral  condition.  In  contrast  with  the  embittered  form 
of  the  socialist,  equally  ignorant  and  equally  unfair  is  the 
man  who  wants  no  changes  and  who  insists  that  the 
hardships  of  the  poor  are  entirely  their  own  fault.  It  is 
easy  for  him  to  show  that  extravagance  and  vice  bring 
poverty  where  comparative  comfort  might  exist,  and  with 
this  superficial  view  of  social  effort  he  rests  content,  with- 
out the  mental  labor  of  analyzing  the  nature  and  results 
of  human  effort,  the  final  result  of  competitive  produc- 
tion, the  nature  of  the  great  industrial  depressions,  and 
the  principles  that  underlie  the  swarming  of  men  in  search 
of  work  while  wealth  surrounds  them. 

It  is  not  profitable  to  discuss  at  length  the  advantages 
and  disadvantages  of  a  communistic  system  which  ex- 
ists only  in  the  hopes  of  its  advocates  or  the  fears  of  its 
opponents,  for  the  real  socialism  of  the  future,  partly  in 
existence  now,  will  unquestionably  be  very  different  from 
all  these  imaginary  creations.  It  is  not  possible  for  any 
sudden  transition  to  be  accomplished,  for  men  must 
socialize  their  hearts  and  minds  before  they  can  really 
socialize  their  institutions,  and  a  premature  attempt  to 
accomplish  the  latter  progress  would  result  in  a  farcical 
socialism  comparable  to  the  pretended  republics  of  South 
America  and  Mexico  or  to  a  free  public-school  system 
among  the  Apaches.  History  proves  that  all  our  social 
institutions  are  the  result  of  a  slow  growth  among  the 


294  KING   MAMMON. 

people,  a  bit  being  added  here  and  another  cut  away 
there  to  meet  the  approval  of  changing  moral  sentiments 
and  economical  needs.  The  people  of  Europe  and 
America  are  now  fitted  for  more  socialism  than  they  were 
fifty  years  ago,  but  by  attempting  something  far  in  ad- 
vance of  their  own  progress,  they  will  merely  become 
involved  in  internecine  strife,  and  will  revert  to  forms  more 
in  consonance  with  their  real  nature.  Forms  of  socialism 
are  nothing  without  the  socialistic  spirit,  and  people  will 
need  to  learn  how  to  co-operate  before  immediately  attempt- 
ing much  further  co-operation.  In  this  country  the  social- 
istic progress  will  probably  take  the  railroads  under 
public  management  as  the  next  step,  but  the  socialis- 
tic state  of  the  future  will  be  approached  very  grad- 
ually, for  the  simple  reason  that  men  become  civilized 
only  in  that  way,  and  that  no  progress  in  social  institu- 
tions can  be  made  faster  than  the  moral  development  of 
the  majority.  The  purest  socialism  is  merely  the  ex- 
pression of  universal  brotherly  love,  and  no  student  of 
the  past  can  doubt  that  humanity  slowly  approaches  a 
realization  of  that  view  of  human  destiny  ;  but  the  result 
can  be  accomplished  only  by  those  infinitely  minute 
changes  in  the  human  race,  and  not  by  the  adoption  of 
mere  forms.  Socialism  will  come  as  rapidly  as  men  are 
prepared  for  it,  but  until  they  are  morally  more  sociable 
animals  than  they  are  now,  they  will  continue  to  fight 
one  another,  regardless  of  mere  laws  and  names. 

For  these  reasons  we  continue  to  exist  under  competi- 
tion, and  we  cannot  judge  the  conduct  of  the  present  by 
the  morality  of  the  future.  If  we  consent  as  a  people  to 
a  complete  socialistic  life,  the  continuance  of  rent,  in- 
terest, and  profit  will  become  not  only  morally  wrong,  but 
economically  impossible.  But  if  a  human  being  is  com- 
pelled to  run  a  race  against  his  fellow-creature,  he  must 
necessarily  favor  himself  and  not  the  other  man's  inter- 


KING   MAMMON. 

ests.  Under  competition  there  must  exist  a  right  of  prop- 
erty, and  that  right  must  apply  uniformly  to  rich  and 
poor.  When  the  laborer  who  follows  Karl  Marx's  theories 
of  rent,  interest,  and  profit,  is  prepared  to  give  to  an- 
other man  the  indefinite  use  of  the  last  coat  he  possesses 
without  compensation  or  even  gratitude  ;  when  he  is  pre- 
pared at  any  moment  to  take  into  his  own  home,  with- 
out price,  any  other  man  who  applies  for  shelter ;  when 
he  will  lend  to  any  neighbor  the  dollar  in  his  possession, 
for  unrestricted  use  without  increase  ;  when  he  will  agree 
to  labor  for  any  employer  and  to  share  in  his  losses  if  he 
be  unsuccessful — then,  and  not  till  then,  can  he  consist- 
ently denounce  compensation  for  the  use  of  property, 
which  is  identically  the  same  in  the  hands  of  both  rich 
and  poor,  both  capitalist  and  laborer,  and  a  just  and  nec- 
essary feature  of  the  competitive  system. 

The  rich  and  the  poor  under  competition  must  use  prop- 
erty alike,  and  be  judged  by  the  same  standards.  It  is 
absurd  for  laborers  to  denounce  in  capitalists  the  same 
principles  of  wealth-control  which  they  put  into  opera- 
tion in  every  transaction  of  their  own  lives.  The  evils 
of  competition  are  general,  and  the  rich  man  is  not  dif- 
ferent from  the  poor  man  except  in  having  more  power. 
The  average  poor  man,  plus  wealth,  and  perhaps  special 
ability,  becomes  the  average  millionaire.  Morally  there 
is  no  distinction  between  them,  for  the  demands  of  la- 
borers, when  they  feel  power  in  their  hands  from  success- 
ful organization,  are  quite  as  imperious  as  any  imposed 
by  capitalists.  The  social  question  does  not  alone  con- 
cern the  forces  ordinarily  grouped  as  capital  and  labor, 
and  it  will  be  decided  mainly  by  those  not  entirely 
identified  with  either  of  these  classes,  who  will  interfere 
in  the  struggle  between  these  two  unreasonable  and  selfish 
contestants.  The  capitalist  will  be  taught  that  he  is 
the  life-trustee  for  the  people,  and  his  employe's  will  be 


KING   MAMMON. 

made  to  understand  that  in  modern  society  they  owe  a 
duty  to  the  whole  people  that  transcends  their  personal 
privileges.  There  is  a  broader  and  higher  plane  than  the 
contest  between  capital  and  labor,  upon  which  the  so- 
cial question  must  be  discussed,  and  as  ignorance  disap- 
pears before  the  spirit  of  inquiry,  all  the  contestants  will 
take  their  places  upon  it.  Then  the  question  to  be  de- 
cided will  not  be  the  adjustment  of  strikes  and  lock-outs, 
but  the  definition  of  the  rights  to  property  and  the  right 
to  use  the  earth. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

ENCHANTED   WEALTH. 

To  whom,  then,  is  this  wealth  of  England  wealth  ?  Who  is  it  that  it 
blesses  ;  makes  happier,  wiser,  beautifuler,  in  any  way  better  ?  Who  has 
got  hold  of  it,  to  make  it  fetch  and  carry  for  him,  like  a  true  servant,  not 
like  a  false  mock  servant ;  to  do  him  any  real  service  whatsoever  ?  As  yet 
no  one.  We  have  more  riches  than  any  nation  ever  had  before  ;  we  have 
less  good  of  them  than  any  nation  ever  had  before.  Our  successful  indus- 
try is  hitherto  unsuccessful ;  a  strange  success  if  we  stop  here  !  In  the  midst 
of  plethoric  plenty,  the  people  perish  ;  with  gold  walls,  and  full  barns,  no 
man  feels  himself  safe  or  satisfied.  Have  we  actually  got  enchanted  then  ; 
accursed  by  some  god? — THOMAS  CARLYLE. 

IN  western  Yankee  land  "hard  times"  is  a  unique 
phrase  applied  to  the  industrial  depressions  which  have 
afflicted  modern  civilization  in  all  parts  of  the  world  at 
comparatively  brief  intervals  in  the  last  one  hundred 
years,  especially  since  the  forces  of  productive  machinery 
and  rapid  transportation  have  been  called  to  the  assist- 
ance of  human  effort.  In  recent  years  a  wordy  warfare 
has  been  waged  among  the  politicians  and  political  econo- 
mists of  every  country  concerning  the  causes  of  such 
depressions,  and  almost  every  kind  of  political  action 
bearing  in  any  way  upon  the  revenues  or  financial  policy 
of  the  nations  afflicted  with  hard  times  is  attacked  by 


KING  MAMMON.  2Q? 

one  faction  or  another  as  the  principal  if  not  the  only 
cause  of  the  disagreeable  phenomena.  In  the  United 
States,  free  traders  and  low-tariff  advocates  denounce  pro- 
tection ;  protectionists  blame  free-trade  propositions  and 
tariff  reductions  ;  gold-standard  advocates  denounce  for- 
mer silver  laws  ;  free-silver  partisans  denounce  a  supposed 
monopoly  of  gold  ;  and  believers  in  abundant  paper  money 
denounce  all  the  other  classes  and  their  methods  of  reliev- 
ing hard  times. 

One  theory  is  too  much  production  ;  another,  too  little 
consumption  ;  a  third,  too  much  speculation  ;  and  a  fourth, 
not  enough  money.  One  political  party  proposes  to  cure 
the  evil  with  high  tariff ;  another  with  low  tariff  ;  a  third 
by  issuing  paper  money  ;  and  a  fourth  by  destroying 
liquor.  The  disciples  of  Henry  George  view  these  dis- 
putants from  afar,  insisting  that  they  are  all  wrong,  and 
declaring  that  the  private  ownership  of  land  is  the  real 
cause  of  industrial  depression.  These  are  samples  of  a 
thousand  different  views  held  with  more  or  less  tenacity 
and  faith  by  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  it  is 
likely  that  a  similar  diversity  of  opinion  exists  in  every 
other  country  afflicted  by  the  same  evils.  In  searching 
for  a  cause,  nearly  all  merely  casual  thinkers  neglect  two 
prominent  features  connected  with  these  disastrous  periods. 
One  is,  that  usually  the  whole  civilized  world  is  similarly 
affected  at  any  given  period,  although  the  extreme  depres- 
sion of  the  wave  may  not  reach  any  two  distant  points  at 
exactly  the  same  time  ;  the  other  is,  that  since  the  great 
arteries  of  commerce  formed  by  steamship  and  railway 
lines  connect  the  nations  constituting  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion, those  countries  are  really  bound  into  one  vast  in- 
dustrial nation,  in  which  the  people  differ  in  government, 
language,  religion,  habits,  and  customs  to  some  extent,  but 
wherein  identically  the  same  industrial  processes  exist, 
with  almost  as  thorough  a  system  of  exchange  between 


298  KING  MAMMON, 

the  people  as  there  would  be  if  no  boundary  lines  existed 
and  all  were  amalgamated  under  a  single  government. 
Remembering  that  hard  times  are  an  industrial  depression, 
and  not  a  political  or  a  religious  depression,  we  need  also 
to  bear  in  mind  that  the  whole  civilized  world  is  really 
bound  together  by  its  system  of  production  and  exchange 
into  one  great  industrial  nation,  and  that  the  industrial  de- 
pression afflicts  all  parts  of  that  great  composite  nation  at 
approximately  the  same  time. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  in  a  structure  so  complex  as 
modern  society  that  only  a  single  cause  shall  produce 
every  one  of  the  myriad  effects  to  be  noted  in  the  differ- 
ent localities  where  industrial  depressions  exist,  but  as 
these  great  waves  of  alternate  prosperity  and  adversity 
sweep  at  somewhat  regular  intervals  over  the  entire  civil- 
ized world,  their  essential  features  being  the  same  in  all 
parts  of  it,  the  theory  seems  reasonable  that  a  general 
cause  must  exist  for  a  phenomenon  almost  universally 
the  same  in  its  effects  over  so  wide  an  area  at  practically 
the  same  time,  instead  of  a  multitude  of  lesser  causes. 

The  real  nature  of  hard  times  must  be  studied  before 
seeking  for  the  cause.  Many  disastrous  famines  have  af- 
flicted various  portions  of  the  world,  and  their  terrible 
history  is  still  recorded  occasionally,  although  modern 
civilization  has  lessened  their  seventy.  These  famines 
have  been  characterized  by  some  of  the  phenomena  at- 
tending the  industrial  depressions,  but  there  is  no  parallel 
of  conditions.  When  the  famine  occurs,  food  is  lacking 
from  the  failure  of  crops,  and  all  that  men  eat  and  wear 
becomes  scarce,  with  high  prices  for  all  that  is  to  be  con- 
sumed. Poor  people  dependent  immediately  upon  the 
products  of  the  soil  they  cultivate,  sometimes  suffer  to 
the  extent  of  starvation.  It  is  the  grim  specter  of  want 
driving  human  beings  to  the  last  extremities  in  fields  that 
have  refused  to  yield  enough  to  sustain  life. 


KING  MAMMON.  299 

Our  industrial  depressions  are  like  the  famines  in  the 
existence  of  suffering  among  the  poor,  but  with  that 
similarity  the  likeness  ceases.  Amidst  what  people  term 
hard  times,  neither  food  nor  clothing  is  scarce.  Every- 
thing that  man  needs  to  eat  or  to  wear  is  profusely 
abundant  and  exceedingly  cheap.  The  farmer's  crops  do 
not  usually  fail,  but  he  is  unable  to  sell  them  except  at 
prices  that  scarcely  leave  him  a  profit  or  sometimes 
involve  a  loss.  Manufacturers  complain  that  they  can- 
not sell  their  products,  and  close  their  factories.  Idle 
men  abound,  and  employment  is  scarce.  Business  is 
stagnated,  commercial  transactions  become  unprofit- 
able, and  frequent  insolvency  results.  Lack  of  profit- 
able employment  compels  the  thrifty  laboring  classes  to 
withdraw  their  savings  rapidly  from  the  banks,  and  the 
weakest  banks  suspend  payments.  Panics  usually  succeed 
these  suspensions,  and  the  confidence  of  the  people  in 
the  solvency  of  banking  institutions  is  destroyed.  Runs 
upon  the  savings  banks  occur ;  the  banks  are  compelled 
by  the  pressure  to  call  in  all  their  available  funds  to  meet 
the  demands  of  depositors,  and  are  obliged  to  refuse  to 
make  new  loans  even  on  the  best  of  security,  although 
their  vaults  may  be  bursting  with  coin,  for  fear  that  their 
timorous  depositors  may  bring  to  bear  too  great  a  pres- 
sure. In  the  business  world,  nothing  seems  capable  of 
yielding  a  profit ;  men  cannot  obtain  money  to  pay  their 
debts,  and  they  say  that  it  is  scarce  ;  investments  cease 
to  be  made  in  new  undertakings,  property  of  all  kinds 
depreciates  in  value,  and  life,  to  the  faithful  subjects  of 
Mammon  who  inhabit  this  planet,  appears  to  be  literally 
not  worth  living.  The  unemployed  swarm  over  the 
country  seeking  an  honest  means  of  earning  a  livelihood 
by  labor  at  first,  and  gradually  degenerating  into  thieves 
or  beggars,  according  to  their  mental  and  moral  charac- 
teristics, when  their  necessities  become  more  and  more 


300  KING   MAMMON. 

stringent.  In  the  winter  these  outcasts  from  modern 
civilization  seeking  shelter  from  the  storms  and  cold, 
congregate  in  the  large  cities,  where  they  develop  into 
Coxey  armies  to  afflict  a  wondering,  puzzled  people  with 
a  troubled  apprehension  of  their  unpleasant  existence, 
and  compel  them  to  develop  something  like  an  attempt 
to  remove  the  worst  features  of  the  evil  condition.  The 
salient  features  of  an  industrial  depression  in  agricultural 
pursuits  are  described  vividly  in  the  subjoined  extract 
from  a  letter  sent  by  a  young  man  in  the  State  of  Wash- 
ington to  his  brother  in  Connecticut  during  the  recent 
general  prostration  : 

"DEAR  BROTHER  : — Times  are  dull  here,  and  everybody 
who  has  work  at  all  is  working  for  small  pay.  But  living 
is  cheap,  that  is  one  thing.  People  are  not  complaining 
for  cheap  eatables.  Things  are  too  cheap.  Just  think  of 
wheat  selling  for  15  cents  a  bushel — 60  pounds.  People 
are  so  hard  up  for  cash  that  they  have  to  sell  their  wheat 
for  any  price.  There  are  ranches  down  in  the  Pullos 
country  with  from  150  to  200  acres  of  wheat  standing  in 
the  field  ;  can't  get  money  enough  for  it  to  pay  for  cutting 
and  threshing  it ;  15  cents  won't  doit,  and  the  farmers, 
some  of  them,  have  let  it  go  to  waste.  They  haul 
potatoes  to  town  by  the  load  and  can't  get  30  cents  a 
hundredweight ;  and  as  for  houses,  you  can  get  one  to 
live  in  for  nothing  ;  there  are  any  amount  of  them  empty. 
Out  on  the  car  lines  you  can  get  houses  to  live  in  free  of 
rent,  so  that  the  owner  can  keep  up  the  insurance  ;  you 
can't  keep  up  insurance  on  empty  houses,  and  sooner 
than  have  their  houses  vacant,  they  will  let  you  live  in 
them  rent  free.  A  trade  don't  do  a  person  much  good 
here  now,  and  if  you  are  out  of  work,  you  have  to  cast 
your  trade  aside  and  work  at  anything  you  can  get  to 
do.  Great  changes  have  taken  place  here  within  the  last 
few  years.  Men  who  have  been  worth  money  are  now 
without  a  dollar  and  working  on  the  railroad  for  a  living. 
I  used  to  know  a  preacher,  when  times  were  good,  who 
had  a  good  church  in  the  country  ;  he  is  a  roustabout  in  a 
grocery  store  now.  Carpenters,  plumbers,  and  mechanics 


KING   MAMMON.  301 

of  all  kinds  have  to  work  at  whatever  kind  of  work  they 
can  get  to  do,  at  from  $i  to  $1.25  a  day  and  board  them- 
selves. Carpenters  used  to  get  from  $3  to  $4  a  day,  but 
now  the  best  don't  get  more  than  $2  to  $2.50,  and  can't 
get  work  at  these  wages  more  than  half  of  the  time.  I 
would  sooner  live  in  a  country  and  pay  $5  for  a  fifty- 
pound  sack  of  flour,  and  a  dollar  a  slice  for  ham,  than  to 
live  where  you  can  get  the  sack  of  flour  for  50  cents,  for, 
where  prices  are  high,  there  is  money  in  sight." 

The  industrial  depression  of  such  frequent  recurrence 
in  the  last  half  century  is  not  the  picture  of  starving 
humanity  surrounded  by  barren  fields  and  blasted  crops. 
It  is  not  the  destruction  of  droughts,  nor  floods,  nor  the 
effect  of  any  unkindness  whatever  in  either  God  or 
Nature.  It  is  poverty  in  the  midst  of  plenty. I  It  is  the 

xThe  following  extracts  clipped  from  the  daily  press  during  the  winter 
of  1894-5,  are  illustrative  of  the  modern  depression  and  its  real  nature. 

LONDON,  MARCH  7,  1895. — A  plasterer  named  Taylor,  living  at  Lower 
Tooting,  near  London,  cut  the  throats  of  his  wife  and  six  children  this 
morning  and  then  took  "his  own  life.  All  the  family  are  dead  except  one 
child,  who  is  at  the  point  of  death. 

The  crime  was  the  outcome  of  the  extreme  destitution  that  prevails 
among  many  of  the  working  classes.  Taylor  was  a  sober,  steady  work- 
man, but  had  been  thrown  out  of  work  by  the  remarkably  cold  weather, 
which  brought  all  building  operations  to  a  standstill.  Not  being  able  to 
provide  for  his  family,  his  mind  became  unhinged,  and  it  is  evident  he 
determined  to  kill  them  and  then  himself,  in  order  to  save  all  from 
slowly  starving  to  death. — San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

MARCH  6,  1895. — President  Cleveland,  in  going  to  the  representatives 
of  the  Rothschilds  for  financial  help  for  this  government,  has  followed 
an  ancient  precedent.  It  is  the  business  of  the  Rothschilds  to  help  out 
(for  a  consideration)  nations  whose  rulers, by  their  folly  or  incompetence, 
have  plunged  themselves  into  financial  distress.  In  that  business  they 
have  become  the  richest  and  most  powerful  family  in  the  world. — Chicago 
Tribune, 

Driven  to  despair  by  hunger  and  cold,  James  Watson  deliberately 
committed  a  crime  early  yesterday  morning  in  order  that  he  might  be 
sent  to  jail,  where  he  can  get  food  and  shelter  for  a  few  months  at  least, 
At  i  o'clock  yesterday  morning  he  applied  at  the  Central  Police  Station 
for  a  night's  lodging  and  a  cup  of  hot  coffee. 

"  We  cannot  take  in  lodgers  here.  You  must  go  to  the  old  City 
Hall,"  explained  Turnkey  Hickey. 

"  Well,  if  you  will  not  let  me  in  now,  you  will  have  to  take  me  in  after 
a  while,"  said  Watson  as  he  turned  away  from  the  prison. 

About  two  hours  later   Officer  John   Galloway  and   Special   Officer 


302  KING   MAMMON. 

picture  of  barefooted  men  perishing  for  food  in  a  world 
of  wealth  ;  starving  for  bread  among  warehouses  full  of 
wheat ;  shivering  for  want  of  a  shirt  while  other  human 
beings,  having  stores  of  wool  and  cotton,  scour  earth  in 
vain  to  find  purchasers  who  will  buy  at  a  price  yielding 
to  the  producer  a  profit.  It  is  a  time  when  poor  men  pray 
for  work  and  wages  ;  when  they  wear  out  roads  and  shoe- 
leather  searching  for  an  opportunity  to  live ;  and  when 
rich  men  work  and  worry  unavailingly  to  protect  their 
accumulated  stores  from  depletion,  to  prevent  their 
business  undertakings  from  failing,  and  to  save  them- 
selves from  being  involved  in  the  almost  universal  panic 
and  destruction  of  property  that  spreads  through  the 
industrial  world. 

Hussey  were  on  the  south  side  of  Market  Street  and  saw  Watson  stop 
in  front  of  O'Brien's  dry  goods  store  at  Market  and  Jones  Streets.  With 
great  deliberation  Watson  took  a  heavy  brick  from  his  pocket  and 
hurled  it  through  the  large  plate-glass  front  of  the  store.  The  crash 
could  be  heard  for  two  blocks.  In  a  moment  the  officers  were  by  his 
side,  for  Watson  made  no  attempt  to  escape. 

"  Yes,  I  am  the  guilty  party,"  he  said.  "  I  intended  to  break  that 
window.  Now  you  will  have  to  take  me  in.  An  empty  stomach  knows 
no  conscience,  and  that  is  about  the  fix  I  am  in." 

The  prisoner  was  charged  with  malicious  mischief.  He  was  taken 
before  Police  Judge  Conlan  and  pleaded  guilty  to  the  charge.  He  will 
be  sentenced  to-day.  Watson  is  a  small  man,  about  40  years  of  age. 
To  a  Chronicle  reporter  he  stated  that  he  is  an  upholsterer,  but  has  not 
been  able  to  secure  work,  either  at  his  trade  or  in  any  other  line,  for  the 
past  three  months. 

"  I  spent  all  the  money  I  had  earned,"  he  said,  "  and  I  have  lived 
more  like  a  tramp  than  a  human  being  ever  since.  Hunger  and  cold 
made  me  desperate  enough  to  break  that  window.  I  could  not  get 
shelter  in  the  prison,  and  I  turned  over  in  my  head  whether  I  would  rob 
some  one  or  smash  a  window.  I  thought  that  the  window  would  be  the 
best.  If  I  had  known  that  this  window  was  so  costly  I  would  have  sent 
the  brick  through  a  smaller  one.  I  saw  the  officers  when  I  threw  the 
brick,  and  intended  they  should  see  me.  This  is  bad  business  I  know, 
but  starving  is  worse." 

He  was  sentenced  to  six  months'  imprisonment  by  Judge  Conlan  yes- 
terday. The  Judge  said  he  was  sorry  the  law  forbade  him  to  lengthen 
the  sentence. — San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

Thirty-five  fortunes  have  passed  through  the  Probate  Court  of  San 
Francisco  ranging  from  one  million  to  twenty-two  millions  of  dollars 
each  in  value. — Chronicle,  Dec.  28,  1894. 

The  discovery  of  the  emaciated  remains  of  a  month-old  infant  in  a 


KING  MAMMON.  303 

In  America  the  commercial  depression  is  a  reproduc- 
tion of  scornful  Thomas  Carlyle's  picture  of  England,  when 
its  condition  was  "one  of  the  most  ominous  and  withal 
one  of  the  strangest  ever  seen  in  this  world  :  " 

"  England  is  full  of  wealth,  of  multifarious  produce, 
supply  for  human  want  in  every  kind ;  yet  England  is 
dying  of  inanition.  With  unabated  bounty  the  land  of 
England  blooms  and  grows ;  waving  with  yellow  har- 
vests ;  thick  studded  with  workshops,  industrial  imple- 
ments, with  fifteen  millions  of  workers,  understood  to 
be  the  strongest,  the  cunningest,  and  the  willingest  our 
Earth  ever  had  ;  these  men  are  here  ;  the  work  they  have 
done,  the  fruit  they  have  realized  is  here,  abundant, 
exuberant,  on  every  hand  of  us  :  and  behold  some  baleful 
fiat  as  of  Enchantment  has  gone  forth,  '  Touch  it  not,  ye 
workers,  ye  master  workers,  ye  master  idlers  ;  none  of 
you  can  touch  it ;  no  man  of  you  shall  be  the  better  for  it ; 
this  is  enchanted  fruit/  On  the  poor  workers  such  fiat 

dismal  apartment  on  Oregon  street  yesterday  brought  to  light  a  sad 
story  of  destitution.  The  child  had  starved  to  death.  John  Harkins,  a 
longshoreman,  is  the  father  of  the  child,  and  he  is  one  of  the  many  un- 
fortunates who  are  unable  to  obtain  employment.  He  has  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  an  industrious  man  when  he  can  find  anything  to  do,  and 
is  honest.  It  is  known  that  he  has  sought  employment  diligently,  but 
with  no  success. — San  Francisco  Chronicle,  February  22,  1895. 

If  we  take  a  survey  of  mankind  in  ancient  or  modern  times  as  regards 
the  physical,  mechanical,  or  intellectual  force  of  nations,  we  find  nothing 
to  compare  with  the  United  States  in  this  present  year  of  1895. — Michael 
G.  Mulhall  on  "  The  Power  and  Wealth  of  the  United  States,"  North 
American  Review,  June,  1895. 

Baby  Rotenbaum  is  dead.  The  Rotenbaums  were  evicted  nearly  a 
month  ago  from  No.  94  Pitt  street.  Max  Rotenbaum,  the  father,  is  a 
striking  cloakmaker.  When  they  were  put  upon  the  streets  the  child 
caught  cold  of  exposure.  The  family  found  refuge  at  No.  51  Jackson 
street.  The  child,  through  lack  of  proper  food,  grew  worse.  The  union 
was  asked  to  secure  medical  aid  for  it,  and  a  physician  was  sought.  He 
demanded  his  pay  in  advance.  The  committee  which  had  called  upon 
him  offered  $i,  which  was  all  they  had.  The  doctor  contemptuously 
refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  a  $i  case.  Max  Rotenbaum  went 
in  despair  to  the  Delancey  Street  station  and  begged  the  sergeant  to 
send  a  physician  to  the  baby.  He  was  roughly  ordered  out.  Somebody 
told  Rotenbaum  that  the  Board  of  Health  might  aid  him,  and  he  went 
there.  He  was  ordered  out  again.  When  he  got  home  the  child  was 
dead.  The  Union  started  an  effort  yesterday  to  raise  a  fund  to  bury  it. 
— New  York  Morning  Advertiser,  January  5,  1895. 


304  KING   MAMMON. 

falls  first,  in  its  rudest  shape ;  but  on  the  rich  master- 
workers  too  it  falls  ;  neither  can  the  rich  master-idlers, 
nor  any  richest  or  highest  man  escape,  but  all  are  like  to 
be  brought  low  with  it,  and  made  poor  enough,  in  the 
money  sense  or  a  far  fataler  one.  Of  these  successful 
skillful  workers,  some  two  millions,  it  is  now  counted,  sit 
in  Workhouses,  Poor-law  Prisons  ;  or  have  out-door  relief 
flung  over  the  wall  to  them.  They  sit  there,  these  many 
months  now  ;  their  hope  of  deliverance  as  yet  small. 
In  workhouses,  pleasantly  so  named,  because  work  can- 
not be  done  in  them.  Twelve  hundred  thousand  workers 
in  England  alone;  their  cunning  right  hand  lamed,  lying 
idle  in  their  sorrowful  bosom ;  their  hopes,  outlooks, 
share  of  this  fair  world,  shut  in  by  narrow  walls.  They 
sit  there,  pent  up,  as  in  a  kind  of  horrid  enchantment, 
...  an  Earth  all  lying  round,  crying,  Come  and  till 
me,  come  and  reap  me  ;  yet  they  here  sit  enchanted.  In 
the  eyes  and  brows  of  these  men  hung  the  gloomiest 
expression,  not  of  anger,  but  of  grief  and  shame  and 
manifold  inarticulate  distress  and  weariness  that  seemed 
to  say,  Do  not  look  at  us.  We  sit  enchanted  here,  we 
know  not  why.  The  Sun  shines  and  the  Earth  calls ; 
and,  by  the  governing  Powers  and  Impotences  of  this 
England,  we  are  forbidden  to  obey.  It  is  impossible, 
they  tell  us  !  " 

When  Want  and  Wealth  thus  march  together,  linked 
arm  in  arm,  over  God's  earth,  are  we  to  wonder  if  Want 
shall  complain  ?  Do  we  not  impose  upon  poverty-stricken 
wretches,  however  blameless  or  blameful  their  lives  may 
have  been,  the  tortures  of  Tantalus  when  useless  riches 
and  abject  misery  are  thus  mingled?  What  ails  the 
world  when  men  seem  too  numerous  to  obtain  food  and 
food  too  abundant  to  secure  a  price  ;  when  thousands  of 
men  pray  for  food  to  eat,  and  other  thousands  pray  for 
men  to  eat  it ;  yet,  when  men  and  food  both  appear 
worthless  ?  Do  not,  O  reader,  turn  from  this  problem 
with  indifferent  glance  and  smile.  One  day  it  will  call 
for  answer  when  you  cannot  pass  it  by.  Hear  the  Scot- 
tish seer: 


KING   MAMMON.  305 

"  And  now  the  world  will  have  to  pause  a  little  and 
take  up  that  other  side  of  the  problem,  and  in  right  earn- 
est strive  for  some  solution  of  that.  What  is  the  use  of 
your  spun  shirts  ?  They  hang  there  by  the  million  un- 
salable ;  and  here,  by  the  million  are  diligent  bare  backs 
that  can  get  no  hold  of  them.  Shirts  are  useful  for  cov- 
ering human  backs ;  useless  otherwise,  an  unbearable 
mockery  otherwise.  You  have  fallen  terribly  behind 
with  that  side  of  the  problem  !  Manchester  Insurrec- 
tions, French  Revolutions,  and  thousandfold  phenomena 
great  and  small,  announce  loudly  that  you  must  bring  it 
forward  a  little  again.  Never  till  now,  in  the  history  of 
an  Earth  which  to  this  hour  nowhere  refuses  to  grow 
corn  if  you  will  plough  it,  to  yield  shirts  if  you  will  spin 
and  weave  in  it,  did  the  mere  manual  two-handed  worker 
(however  it  might  fare  with  other  workers)  cry  in  vain 
for  such  wages  as  he  means  by  fair  wages,  namely, 
food  and  warmth  !  The  Godlike  could  not  and  cannot 
be  paid,  but  the  Earthly  always  could.  Gurth,  a  mere 
swineherd,  born  thrall  of  Cedric  the  Saxon,  tended  pigs 
in  the  wood,  and  did  get  some  parings  of  the  pork. 
Why,  the  four-footed  worker  has  already  got  all  that  this 
two-handed  one  is  clamoring  for  !  How  often  must  I 
remind  you  ?  There  is  not  a  horse  in  England,  able  and 
willing  to  work,  but  has  due  food  and  lodging ;  and  goes 
about  sleek-coated,  satisfied  in  heart.  And  you  say,  It  is 
impossible.  Brothers,  I  answer,  if  for  you  it  be  impos- 
sible, what  is  to  become  of  you  ?  The  human  brain, 
looking  at  these  sleek  English  horses,  refuses  to  believe 
in  such  impossibility  for  English  men." 

Impossible  to  understand  or  alleviate  these  evils  ?  Let 
us  see.  Years  ago  I  knew  an  uneducated  man  of  strong 
natural  abilities,  who  was  fond  of  mathematics.  Although 
ignorant  of  the  processes  used  in  the  higher  mathematics, 
and  unfamiliar  with  the  ordinary  principles  of  the  science 
beyond  the  methods  of  arithmetic,  he  nevertheless  solved 
many  difficult  problems,  usually  supposed  to  require  the 
application  of  algebra  and  geometry,  by  a  process  of  his 
own,  which  he  called,  in  homely  phrase,  "  boiling  the 
20 


306  KING   MAMMON. 

question  down."  His  plan  was  to  begin  the  investiga- 
tion by  substituting  smaller  numbers  and  simpler  relations 
for  those  actually  involved  in  the  problem  ;  and  by  con- 
tinuing to  vary  them  he  gradually  progressed  to  a  compre- 
hension of  all  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  question 
before  him. 

May  we  not  apply  the  process  of  "boiling  down  "  to 
the  phenomena  of  hard  times  ?  In  modern  industrial 
depressions,  the  various  elements  of  men  and  business, 
laws  and  money,  seem  to  be  linked  together  in  an  endless 
chain,  so  that  if  an  investigator  sets  in  at  any  given 
point  to  seek  an  explanation,  he  is  almost  certain  to  chase 
cause  and  effect  round  and  round  the  circle  of  social 
phenomena,  till  at  length,  dizzy  and  bewildered  with 
tracing  the  involved  effects  of  financial  operations,  tariff 
changes,  land  speculations,  business  failures,  great  trans- 
portation systems,  and  world-disturbing  inventions,  he 
arrives  at  the  point  from  which  he  started,  proving  that 
some  particular  legislation  in  his  country  makes  hard 
times,  while  another  investigator  on  the  other  side  of  the 
circle,  starting  from  a  different  point,  proves  with  equal 
facility  that  the  depression  has  been  produced  by  exactly 
opposite  causes.  In  the  United  States,  high-tariff  men 
and  low-tariff  men  thus  play  hide-and-seek  on  opposite 
sides  of  this  curious  social  circle ;  while  another  portion 
of  the  ring,  half  way  between  them,  is  given  up  to  the 
gold  advocates  and  the  silver  theorists,  who  dodge  in  and 
out  between  the  component  links  of  their  endless  chain, 
chasing  dollars  of  different  kinds  to  the  four  ends  of  the 
earth  in  the  attempt  to  ascertain  how  and  when  and  why 
they  make  the  dreaded  industrial  crises  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

In  modern  life  there  are  such  multiplicity  and  diversity 
of  laws,  institutions,  occupations,  and  exchanges  that  this 
social  problem  in  its  present  form,  like  many  another  in 


KING   MAMMON.  307 

the  more  exact  science  of  mathematics,  becomes  complex, 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  so  many  contradictory  solu- 
tions are  embodied  in  the  theories  of  social  observers. 
Let  us  first  free  the  problem  of  unnecessary  factors  or 
elements.  There  are  really  only  two  things  involved — 
men  and  wealth,  or  rather,  men  and  the  distribution  and 
control  of  the  earth  they  inhabit.  The  men  in  a  modern 
society  are  involved  in  a  thousand  complex  vocations, 
the  earth  is  transformed  into  a  thousand  curious  forms 
by  human  effort,  and  the  results  are  distributed  under  a 
thousand  different  methods  of  title  and  transfer  ;  but  the 
real  condition  in  the  industrial  depression  is  that  the 
abounding  wealth  of  society, — for  no  careful  observer  can 
deny  that  society  during  hard  times  is  really  wealthy  in 
the  aggregate  possession  of  everything  that  men  con- 
sume,— having  been  stored  with  a  few  of  the  people  as 
capitalists  and  placed  absolutely  under  their  control, 
becomes  inaccessible  to  all  others  who  have  or  have  not 
aided  in  producing  that  wealth.  These  unfortunates 
consequently  suffer  during  a  period  when,  in  the  aggre- 
gate, a  large  surplus  of  wealth  exists,  but  in  which  many 
individuals,  on  account  of  either  their  imprudence  or 
their  misfortunes,  retain  no  share  in  the  possession  of  the 
accumulated  stores  and  are  debarred  from  production  by 
the  monopoly  over  the  earth  exercised  by  their  associ- 
ates, who  are  thus  placed  in  a  position  to  deny  the  out- 
casts not  only  an  opportunity  to  work  for  wages  or  for 
a  mere  subsistence,  but  finally  the  opportunity  to  use  any 
available  portion  of  the  earth  from  which  to  produce  by 
their  own  labor  their  own  subsistence.  The  cause  of 
hard1  times  in  this  one  great  industrial  nation  that  mod- 
ern civilization  has  evolved,  implies,  in  the  first  place,  a 
period  of  intense  productive  activity  during  which  a  large 
body  of  surplus  wealth  is  accumulated  that  becomes 
greater  every  year.  Ultimately  the  uselessness  of  a  great 


308  KING   MAMMON. 

surplus  in  excess  of  consumption  becomes  apparent  to 
individual  producers,  although  not  at  first  to  the  aggre- 
gate society,  and  in  consequence  the  production  here 
and  there  ceases  as  the  excessive  accumulation  becomes 
apparent  and  the  demand  fails.  From  that  initial  point 
of  industrial  stagnation  the  cessation  of  industry  is  rapidly 
disseminated,  the  paralysis  spreading  under  the  simple 
law  that  as  individual  man  can  reap  no  real  benefit  by 
converting  himself  into  a  mere  machine  for  the  produc- 
tion of  bread,  thus  surrounding  himself  with  a  million  of 
loaves  stacked  up  mountain  high  as  the  result  of  his 
tremendous  effort,  so  aggregate  man  of  industrial  society 
cannot  really  profit  by  attempting  to  do  identically  the 
same  thing  ;  and  the  commercial  crisis  is  merely  nature's 
method  of  notifying  silly  human  creatures  that  in  the 
aggregate  they  cannot  make  human  existence  something 
different  from  what  it  really  is,  nor  make  human  life  any 
happier  by  foolishly  trying  to  store  up  food  and  clothing,  or 
their  representatives,  in  the  form  of  wealth,  to  be  hoarded, 
and  protected,  and  even  worshiped  for  its  own  sake. 

The  accumulation  of  wealth  in  society  is  an  im- 
possibility .beyond  very  narrow  limits,  for  it  is  absolutely 
useless  as  a  surplus  bevond  a  comparatively  small  amount 
when  apportioned  to  each  individual,  and  the  inevitable 
failure  and  breakdown  of  industrial  effort  in  hard  times 
is  an  expression  of  that  impossibility.  Our  industrial 
managers  and  our  political  economists  are  intelligent  in 
their  methods  of  production.  Andrew  Carnegie  and  his 
class  of  manufacturers  can  tell  how  to  transform  crude 
fragments  of  the  earth  into  something  adapted  to  man's 
use.  Edward  Atkinson  and  his  school  of  economists, 
who  preach  eternal  human  effort,  perpetual  machine 
motion,  and  cheapness  above  all  things,  understand  one 
side  of  social  wealth  thoroughly.  All  these  devotees  at 
the  shrine  of  wealth-production  can  accurately  and 


KING   MAMMON.  309 

truthfully  tell  how  the  world  has  improved  in  its  means 
of  making  bread  and  shirts  rapidly,  but  of  some  worthy 
and  noble  means  of  using  the  bread  and  shirts  accumu- 
lated when  the  depression  stops  human  effort,  they  have 
nothing  to  say.  In  their  comprehension,  the  social 
question  is  nothing  but  the  best  means  of  making  and 
storing  more  wealth,  and  they  are  oblivious  of  the  real 
truth  underlying  all  human  effort,  that  if  men  succeed  in 
heaping  food  and  clothing  into  a  pyramid  as  wide  as 
earth  and  as  high  as  heaven,  the  result  will  confer  upon 
them  nothing  but  the  curse  of  accumulated  inactivity 
while  they  are  consuming  it.  The  real  social  question  is 
not,  at  least  in  this  country,  how  we  shall  immediately 
make  more  wealth  and  make  it  more  rapidly,  but  how 
we  shall  use  and  intelligently  and  fairly  control  what  we 
already  have,  so  that  the  creation  of  our  own  brains  and 
ringers  shall  not  become  a  tyrant  to  hinder  our  own 
efforts  and  deprive  us  of  liberty.  From  being  our  serv- 
ant, wealth  has  become  our  master ;  and  rich  and  poor 
alike  serve  this  tyrant  so  foolishly  and  so  abjectly  that 
when  hard  times  involve  his  complete  ascendency  and 
their  complete  subjugation,  they  bear  his  kicks  and  cuffs 
like  whimpering  curs  beneath  the  lash,  snarling  and 
snapping  at  one  another,  but  not  attacking  the  real  source 
of  their  misery. 

To  trace  these  principles  of  society,  let  us  place  man 
back  at  the  beginning  of  civilization,  with  simpler  forms 
of  life  and  a  wealth  accumulation  less  complex.  Imagine 
the  members  of  a  savage  tribe  existing  by  the  usual  pro- 
ductive efforts  of  such  people.  Their  avocations  are 
hunting,  fishing,  digging  roots,  gathering  berries,  and 
making  such  rude  huts  and  implements  as  belong  to  their 
grade  of  development.  Their  stores  of  meat  and  fruits 
constitute  almost  their  only  wealth,  except  the  few  rude 
products  of  an  imperfect  handicraft.  During  a  favorable 


310  KING   MAMMON. 

season,  when  all  the  sources  of  food  supply  are  plentiful, 
the  savages  rapidly  accumulate  the  characteristic  wealth 
of  their  social  existence.  Their  stores  of  all  kinds  of  food 
increase,  and  a  portion  is  dried  for  future  consumption. 
There  is  some  preparation  for  the  future,  but,  although 
there  may  be  tons  of  acorns  ungathered  on  the  trees,  and 
scores  of  salmon  still  unspeared  in  the  streams,  sooner 
or  later  every  savage  views  his  increasing  stores  with 
a  complacent  satisfaction,  clearly  perceiving,  unlike  civ- 
ilized man,  that  wealth  which  cannot  be  consumed  is  a 
curse  instead  of  a  blessing,  and  refusing  to  be  guided  by 
the  economic  doctrines  of  constant  work  and  perpetual 
production  advocated  by  some  modern  economists.  He 
looks  doubtfully  at  the  interminable  world  of  work  they 
would  lay  out  before  him,  and  inquires,  "cut  bono  />' 
if  that  expression  happens  to  be  in  his  language,  and 
thereafter  ceases  to  lay  up  further  supplies  of  food  for 
worms  to  eat  before  he  will  need  to  consume  it.  Having 
by  activity  thus  acquired  a  store,  the  members  of  the 
tribe  then  occupy  their  time  in  pursuits  more  congenial 
to  the  mind  of  a  savage  than  digging  roots,  and  mean- 
while consume  the  accumulated  provisions.  This  period 
of  consumption  and  inactivity  is  their  industrial  depres- 
sion, but  its  hardships  do  not  exist,  because  communal 
possession  and  use  of  wealth  usually  exist  within  the 
tribe,  and  the  sources  of  food  supply  in  the  woods  and 
streams  are  never  inaccessible  to  any  savage  who  may 
not  have  a  share  in  the  tribal  surplus.  Poverty  of  a  cer- 
tain degree  is  universal  among  savages,  but  starvation 
surrounded  by  shiploads  of  food  is  not  characteristic 
of  their  social  institutions.  Gathering  and  consuming 
wealth  in  this  way,  "over-production"  has  no  terrors 
for  the  savage,  and  his  industrial  periods  of  alternate 
activity  and  inactivity  succeed  one  another  without  social 
disturbance. 


KING   MAMMON.  311 

Nevertheless,  in  this  simple  succession  of  production, 
accumulation,  and  consumption  are  to  be  found  the 
real  causes  of  that  business  paralysis  we  call  com- 
mercial depression.  The  condition  is  so  simple  that 
were  it  not  so  generally  misconceived  an  apology 
would  be  due  for  any  explanation.  Over-production 
among  savages  is  a  blessing  instead  of  a  curse,  because 
they  have  unrestricted  access  to  the  earth  as  the  parent  of 
all  wealth,  and  practically  equal  rights  in  the  consump- 
tion of  the  wealth  already  stored.  The  savage  existence 
is  a  simple  form  of  society  not  possible  in  the  present, 
but  valuable  in  enabling  us  to  understand  our  own  con- 
dition. Primitive  man  labors  in  order  that  he  may  eat ; 
civilized  man  toils  like  a  work-demon  for  profit,  that  he 
may  pile  up  huge  stocks  of  food  and  clothing,  which  he 
cannot  use  himself,  and  which  he  will  permit  no  other 
man  to  eat  or  wear.  Like  the  fabulous  dog  in  the  man- 
ger, he  cannot  consume  what  he  has  in  his  possession, 
and  he  will  let  no  other  human  being  touch  it.  Out  of 
such  conditions  arise  hard  times. 

Primitive  man  is  happy  when,  with  a  full  stomach,  he 
knows  that  a  haunch  of  venison  remains  in  his  wigwam  to 
provide  for  the  immediate  future.  Civilized  man  is  miser- 
able after  he  has  accumulated  a  store  for  the  future, 
because  he  cannot  continually  add  to  his  pile  and  view  its 
perpetual  growth.  He  is  Mark  Twain's  blue-jay,  poking 
acorns  through  the  roof  of  a  house  to  fill  its  vast  interior, 
striving  desperately  to  accomplish  the  useless,  if  not  the 
impossible,  and  squalling  absurd  denunciations  of  the 
universe  because  he  cannot  accomplish  his  foolish  desires. 
Production  for  consumption  and  for  increased  facilities  in 
further  production  is  no  longer  his  theory  of  labor,  but 
production  for  a  magpie's  habit  of  accumulation  is  the 
basis  upon  which  he  operates. 

The  changes  which  have  brought  this  absurd  develop- 


312  KING   MAMMON. 

ment  of  wealth-worship  into  human  nature,  affecting  the 
writer  of  these  pages  quite  as  much  as  other  men,  are  the 
development  of  private  ownership,  the  division  of  the 
earth  under  that  idea  of  occupancy,  and  the  evolution  of 
the  competitive  system  between  individuals.  As  the 
variety  and  extent  of  human  possessions  become  greater, 
on  account  of  man's  inventions,  the  simple  forms  of  tribal 
and  family  joint  possession  give  way  to  more  definite 
and  rigid  rights.  In  the  growth  of  society,  roads  are 
built,  separate  trades  are  evolved,  land  is  more  regularly 
cultivated  and  is  reduced  to  private  ownership.  Exchange 
in  products  develops  into  the  commercial  system,  requir- 
ing money  to  facilitate  its  numerous  transactions. 
Eventually  society  arrives  at  the  vast  agricultural, 
manufacturing,  and  commercial  processes  of  the  modern 
world,  with  the  aggregation  of  capital  as  a  tool  for  labor, 
the  wage-system,  the  rapid  invention  of  machinery,  the 
subdivision  of  labor,  the  centralization  of  industry,  the 
destruction  of  small,  independent,  productive  effort  of  all 
kinds,  the  complex  financial  system  of  banking,  and  the 
intricate  commercial  relations  established  between  all  the 
great  nations  by  which  they  have  become,  by  the  devel- 
opment of  railroads  and  steamships,  a  single,  compact 
body  of  producers  and  consumers,  with  counters  set  up 
at  the  merely  artificial  boundaries  of  political  divisions, 
over  which  the  people  buy  and  sell.  These  transforma- 
tions from  the  simple  savage  existence  involve  wonder- 
fully complex  conditions  apparently,  but  in  their  real 
nature  they  are  reducible  to  a  society  divided  into  two 
great  classes  as  producers — one  making  food,  the  other 
shelter.  Each  class  exchanges  products  with  the  other, 
in  order  that  all  may  obtain  the  necessities  and  conveni- 
ences of  life.  At  a  certain  period  in  this  industrial  history, 
immediately  after  a  disastrous  and  destructive  war,  for 
instance,  food  and  shelter  are  scarce  in  the  great  indus- 


KING   MAMMON.  313 

trial  nation,  and  to  provide  new  stores  productive  effort 
becomes  fiercely  energetic.  The  steam-engines  puff  and 
scream;  the  laborers  toil  like  demons;  the  "captains 
of  industry  "  rack  their  brains  for  new  methods  of  pro- 
ducing cheaply  and  expeditiously ;  the  heavily-laden 
cars  and  steamers  bear  vast  quantities  of  all  that  tends  to 
sustain  and  protect  human  life,  and  of  much  that  does 
not,  to  a  thousand  cities  of  the  great  industrial  nation, 
with  its  Englishmen,  its  Frenchmen,  its  Germans,  and  its 
Yankees,  all  linked  by  commercial  bonds  into  a  seething, 
struggling  mass  of  competitive  humanity,  grinding  out 
and  piling  up  and  exchanging  all  kinds  of  things  to  eat 
and  wear.  Everybody  is  apparently  making  a  fortune, 
big  or  little,  and  Mammon  dances  on  his  throne. 

Sooner  or  later — the  more  fiercely  the  demons  toil  and 
the  more  perfect  their  machines,  the  sooner  does  it  occur 
— a  change  comes  over  the  industrial  process.  The  ware- 
houses in  every  city,  guarded  by  the  "captains  of  in- 
dustry," and  prepared  for  exchange  with  other  captains 
in  hope  of  that  profit  which  is  the  end  and  aim  of  the 
business  man's  life,  are  full  to  bursting.  Stores  of  food 
and  shelter  mountain  high  are  found  wherever  the  expect- 
ation of  profit  has  demanded  their  aggregation.  Every 
captain  with  a  warehouse  has  abundance  of  food  and 
shelter,  and  unless  some  human  being  shall  use  his  ac- 
cumulated store,  the  ever  present  worm  will  devour  it. 
Then  these  stupid  and  insanely  greedy  human  beings, x 
viewing  their  overflowing  warehouses,  are  finally  com- 

1  Paley's  famous  pigeon  comparison  is  not  a  bad  picture  of  society. 
"  If  you  should  see  a  flock  of  pigeons  in  a  field  of  corn,  and  if,  instead 
of  each  picking  where  and  what  it  liked,  taking  just  as  much  as  it  wan  ted 
and  no  more,  you  should  see  ninety-nine  of  them  gathering  all  they  got 
into  a  heap,  reserving  nothing  for  themselves  but  the  chaff  and  the  re- 
fuse, keeping  this  heap  for  one,  and  that  the  weakest,  perhaps  the  worst 
pigeon  of  the  flock  ;  sitting  round  and  looking  on  all  the  winter,  while 
this  one  was  devouring,  throwing  about  and  wasting  it ;  and  if  a  pigeon 
more  hardy  or  hungry  than  the  rest,  touched  a  grain  of  the  hoard,  all  the 


KING   MAMMON. 

pelled  to  pause  and  inquire,  as  their  savage  ancestors  did 
under  similar  circumstances,  "  cui  honor'"  but  they 
usually  express  approximately  the  same  idea  by  say- 
ing, "What  the  deuce  are  we  to  do  with  all  these 
things  ? " 

In  economical  articles,  valuable  in  many  respects  for 
careful  investigations,  Edward  Atkinson  exposes  some 
fallacies  regarding  wealth  and  poverty,  and  is  himself 
astonished  when  he  finds  that  "the  people  of  the  richest 
state  are  always  within  one  year  of  starvation,  within  two 
years  of  being  naked,  and  within  a  very  few  years  of  being 
houseless  and  homeless,  unless  they  work  for  a  living. " 
His  estimates  deduced  from  statistics  are  undoubtedly 
approximately  correct,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest 
reason  for  surprise  at  the  result ;  for  any  great  surplus  of 
consumable  products  used  for  food  and  clothing,  is  now, 
and  will  ever  be,  not  only  practically  useless,  but  econom- 
ically impossible.  It  should  not  require  long  rows  of 
figures  nor  complicated  calculations  to  prove  that  aggre- 
gate civilized  humanity  does  not  possess  more  than  a 
year's  food  or  two  years*  clothing  at  any  time.  The  real 
matter  for  astonishment  is  why  aggregate  humanity 
desires  any  greater  surplus  than  a  year's  supply,  and  what 
men  imagine  that  they  could  really  do  with  a  continually 
accumulating  product  of  things  to  eat  and  wear.  The 
political  economy  of  the  productionists,  tending  solely  in 
one  direction,  and  with  authors  blind  to  all  that  cannot 
there  be  seen,  urges  that  no  improvement  in  social  con- 
ditions can  occur  except  by  cheaper  production  and  more 

others  instantly  flying  upon  it  and  tearing  it  to  pieces ;  if  you  should 
see  this  you  would  see  nothing  more  than  what  is  every  day  practised 
and  established  among  men."  The  philosophy  of  this  volume  would 
give  to  every  pigeon  (for  the  present  era)  whatever  he  chose  to  hoard, 
no  matter  whether  he  could  eat  it  or  not,  but  would  prevent  its  trans- 
mission in  a  body  to  some  pouter  whose  principal  merit  is  in  his  distin- 
guished appearance,  and  who  ought  to  be  made  to  scratch  for  his  corn 
like  other  birds. 


KING   MAMMON.  315 

of  it.  They  fail  to  see  that  if  a  man  lives  by  bread  alone 
and  has  accumulated  a  thousand  loaves,  the  only  benefit 
to  him  thus  acquired  is  a  change  of  occupfation  ;  for  instead 
of  making  more  loaves,  he  may  do  something  else  while 
his  loaves  remain  unconsumed.  Whether  he  is  happier 
in  doing  something  else  depends  upon  the  nature  of  his 
new  occupation,  and  upon  whether  he  is  compelled 
to  enter  it  or  enters  it  voluntarily.  Similarly,  when 
millions  of  men  are  aggregated  in  society  the  only  real 
gain  to  humanity  by  increased  production,  however  it 
maybe  cheapened  and  expedited,  is  change  of  occupa- 
tion. When  men  have  accumulated  a  thousand  loaves 
apiece,  they  can  do  something  else  besides  making  bread, 
and  practically,  in  the  industrial  depression,  they  are 
compelled  to  do  something  else,  whether  they  wish  to  or 
not  ;  but  human  happiness  is  not  increased  by  the  change. 
The  loaves  of  modern  society  are  stored  in  bulk  under  the 
charge  of  keepers,  who  are  in  a  position  not  only  to  refuse 
assistance  in  making  more  bread  for  those  who  have 
none,  but  who  can  also  deny  the  hungry  the  apparently 
just  privilege  of  an  opportunity  to  make  their  own  bread. 
In  hard  times,  society  has  accumulated  many  loaves  and 
is  rewarded  by  much  leisure,  involving  a  change  of  occu- 
pation. That  leisure,  regulated  by  intelligent  justice, 
while  we  are  consuming  our  surplus  products  might  be 
a  blessing,  but  our  social  organization  and  efforts  make 
of  it  a  curse.  We  are  happy  while  working  and  miserable 
when  resting ;  for  our  change  of  occupation  among  the 
poor  compels  men  to  tramp  over  muddy  and  dusty 
roads  and  to  carry  blankets,  while  they  beg  first  for  work 
and  then,  in  greater  degradation,  for  food.  The  same 
leisure  among  the  rich  develops  a  luxurious  idleness  and 
extravagance  and  breeds  the  fashionable  vices  that  have  af- 
flicted aristocracy  in  all  ages  and  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
bringing  in  their  train  the  misery  that  eventually  succeeds 


316  KING   MAMMON. 

all  forms  of  vice.  Rich  and  poor  are  alike  debased  by 
these  extremes  of  unregulated  action  and  inaction. 

Let  men  work  fang  enough  and  hard  enough,  mentally 
and  physically,  on  earth  as  we  now  find  it,  and  so  surely 
as  night  follows  day  will  they  accumulate  an  abundance 
of  wealth  that  will  decay  before  they  can  consume  it,  for 
do  not  all  things  that  men  eat  and  wear,  or  use  in  any 
way,  rot  and  perish  by  advancing  age  ?  When  man  brings 
nothing  into  the  world  and  takes  nothing  away,  how  is 
he  individually  or  collectively  to  become  the  gainer  by 
grinding  out  his  own  life  and  health,  or  even  the  lives  and 
health  of  other  men  in  the  mad  effort  to  accumulate 
wealth  for  its  own  sake  ?  When  he  thus  becomes  a  slave 
to  his  own  greed  and  folly  as  an  aggregated  body  of 
human  beings  by  attempting  these  things,  Nature  steps  in 
to  correct  his  mistakes. 

A  change  comes  over  the  industrial  world  we  have 
described.  The  "captains  of  industry  "  in  all  quarters  of 
the  earth,  having  bursting  warehouses  and  no  sight  of 
scarcity  or  probability  of  demand  for  products  which  they 
possess  only  for  exchange  and  profit,  realize  at  last  that 
food  must  be  eaten  and  clothes  worn  to  be  of  any  real 
value  to  the  human  race,  so  they  cease  producing  and 
exchanging  what  may  perish  or  decay  in  their  possession. 
The  game,  the  fish,  and  the  roots  of  a  savage  existence 
have  in  these  modern  forms  of  wealth  been  accumulated, 
and  no  man  can  obtain  real  benefits  till  they  are  con- 
sumed, so  the  great  mills  are  closed,  the  engines  cease 
puffing,  the  demons  of  modern  industry  are  driven  away 
from  their  machines,  and  Mammon  weeps  because  he 
cannot  subvert  the  laws  of  Nature  and  convert  men  into 
mere  machines  of  perpetual  motion  to  manufacture  useless 
wealth  for  mere  profit  and  possession,  and  not  for 
rational  use  and  consumption.  During  the  period  of 
general  industrial  activity  the  farmer  has  also  been  stimu- 


KING   MAMMON.  317 

lated  by  Mammon  into  a  vast  production  of  the  materials 
upon  which  all  other  production  depends,  and  finds  the  value 
of  his  land  enhanced  by  the  apparent  facility  with  which  he 
disposes  of  products  that  all  seem  to  want.  Once  having 
produced  a  surplus  wealth  for  society,  however,  he  finds, 
as  a  natural  consequence,  that  while  that  surplus  lasts, 
there  is  little  demand  and  only  low  prices  for  either  his 
products  or  his  land  till  the  surplus  is  consumed.  Mean- 
while, those  laborers  expelled  from  all  kinds  of  productive 
effort,  who  have  retained  little  or  no  share  in  the  possession 
of  the  really  great  aggregate  social  wealth,  soon  consume 
their  small  stores  and  find  no  captains  of  industry  who 
need  their  services  for  wages.  Thousands  of  men  have 
cheap  food  and  clothing  to  sell,  but  the  discarded  laborer 
has  nothing  but  the  use  of  his  two  hands  to  offer  in 
return,  and  no  devotee  of  Mammon  can  make  a  profit  on 
them  in  production.  Land  is  cheap,  but  the  outcasts  have 
naught  to  pay,  and  they  find  no  spot  whereon  life  can  be 
sustained  that  is  not  already  placed  under  some  man's 
dominion  and  held  useless  even  if  a  thousand  other  men 
be  starving  on  its  borders. 

Little  or  no  profit  being  obtainable  from  exchanges, 
all  means  of  transportation  become  comparatively  idle. 
Wagons,  instead  of  carrying  produce,  are  in  their  sheds, 
and  locomotives  are  in  the  round-house.  Similarly, 
money  stays  at  home.  The  nimble  dollar  of  industrial 
activity  appears  and  reappears  on  the  stage  of  life  like 
the  members  of  a  mock  procession  at  the  theater,  where 
the  actors  in  the  front  chase  one  another  behind  the 
scenes  to  add  to  the  apparent  numbers  of  the  passing 
throng  by  again  appearing  at  the  rear.  In  the  industrial 
depression,  money  appears  to  be  scarce  because,  like  the 
wagons  and  locomotives,  it  is  stored  safely  when  there 
is  no  demand  for  it  as  a  tool  or  machine  or  vehicle  in 
making  exchanges  ;  and,  as  a  representative  of  value,  it 


318  KING    MAMMON. 

is  again  like  the  wagons  in  not  being  obtainable  by  peo- 
ple who  have  nothing  to  give  for  it  but  labor.  The  same 
wagons  used  in  a  period  of  active  industry  are  in 
the  country  during  a  depression,  but  they  are  in  their 
sheds  out  of  sight.  The  same  money  of  business  activity 
is  also  in  existence,  but  it,  too,  is  out  of  sight,  hoarded 
in  banks  and  private  safes  and  purses  by  people  who 
see  no  opportunity  of  using  it  safely  for  profit  till  the  eco- 
nomic condition  changes.  This  period  of  apparent  scarcity 
is  the  time  when  the  financial  reformer  wants  to  create 
more  money  ;  for  Mammon  is  crazy,  the  world  is  out  of 
joint,  and  in  that  condition  the  project  of  making  some- 
thing out  of  nothing,  although  an  inconceivable  attribute 
of  Deity,  does  not  really  seem  an  impossibility  for  human 
beings  to  accomplish.  Thousands,  if  not  millions,  of 
people  in  this  country  apparently  regard  the  paralysis  of 
the  industrial  depression  as  a  thing  to  be  prevented  by 
mere  changes  in  the  circulating  medium,  and  they  seem 
persistently  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  if  there  were  no 
money  in  the  world,  or  if  there  were  ten  million  times  as 
much  as  now  exists,  the  stagnation  and  suffering  from 
an  over-production  of  consumable  articles  would  produce 
the  phenomena  of  hard  times  under  competitive  civiliza- 
tion as  surely  as  night  follows  day. 

The  industrial  depression  is  absolutely  unavoidable 
unless  we  produce  less  to  avoid  a  surplus.  It  is  a  part 
of  competition  by  which  the  prodigious  effort  of  all  stores 
an  abundant  over-supply  under  the  power  of  a  few.  The 
regulation  of  competitive  production  is  impossible,  and 
the  only  feasible  remedies  for  the  evils  of  hard  times  are 
in  the  first  place  to  understand  their  cause  ;  to  know  that 
they  are  inevitable  under  our  social  system;  to  avoid,  so 
far  as  possible,  the  calamity  of  individually  possessing 
nothing  when  the  crisis  occurs ;  and  to  alleviate  the  dis- 
tress of  those  who  suffer  on  account  of  a  condition  that 


KING   MAMMON.  319 

is  due  to  a  social  system  for  which  all  are  equally  re- 
sponsible. It  is  folly  to  assume  that  those  who  have  are 
in  no  way  responsible  for  the  ills  that  afflict  those  who 
have  not.  It  is  also  dangerous  folly,  for  if  the  discarded 
demons  of  toil  become  destructive  demons,  brandishing 
the  torch,  who  can  really  blame  them,  remembering  that 
they  are  human  beings  who  becoming  hungry  will  not 
starve  in  the  midst  of  plenty  ?  There  is  the  man,  here  is 
the  earth,  and  one  is  denied  the  simple  right  of  an  unob- 
structed opportunity  to  produce  his  existence  from  the 
other,  yet  silly  humanity  feeds  and  clothes  him  by 
grudging  charity  rather  than  accord  him  justice  and  the 
mere  right  to  feed  himself  by  his  own  efforts. 

Human  folly  is  well  illustrated  by  a  story  that  recently 
appeared  in  a  valuable  little  journal  I  published  in  south- 
ern California.  It  is  partially  devoted  to  bee-keeping, 
and  tells  of  Hans  Peterson,  who  maintained  an  apiary 
in  that  sunny  land  of  flowers.  Hans  was  a  Scandinavian 
who  had  received  little  opportunity  in  his  frozen  north- 
ern home  to  investigate  the  mysteries  of  the  social  and 
industrial  institutions  of  bees.  He  was  patient  and 
studious,  however,  and  finally  learned  to  manage  his 
little  winged  workers  without  suffering  greatly  by  rashly 
approaching  the  wrong  ends  of  them. 

"When  the  season  for  honey-making  commenced,  Hans 
was  happy.  He  had  twenty-five  hives  of  bees  well 
located,  and  they  were  busily  at  work.  An  admirer  of 
productive  effort,*  he  used  to  lie  in  the  sun  and  gaze  at 
his  bees  flying  hither  and  thither  in  the  balmy  air  of  the 
early  California  summer,  thinking  of  the  stores  and  stores 
of  golden  honey  they  were  accumulating  under  the  im- 
proved methods  of  modern  bee-industry  assisted  by 
comb  foundation,  subdivision  of  swarms,  and  other  in- 
genious contrivances  for  increasing  production.  As  the 
bees  wandered  from  blossom  to  blossom  gathering  their 

!The  Ventura  Altrurian,  April  I,  1895. 


320  KING   MAMMON. 

little  cargoes  of  sweets,  Hans  watched  them  with  de- 
lighted attention,  and  when  the  busy  insects  approached 
the  hive  with  baskets  full  of  pollen,  he  blessed  their  tire- 
less industry  and  felt  that  every  day  he  and  they  were 
becoming  wealthier. 

"The  early  summer  months  sped  along  in  this  happy 
harvesting  of  earthly  products,  the  bees  working  harder 
and  harder  every  day,  and  Hans  watching  them  more  and 
more  intently.  Finally,  however,  as  midsummer  ap- 
proached, he  noticed  a  gradual  change  in  their  methods 
of  transacting  business.  His  bees  were  apparently  be- 
coming indolent.  Instead  of  wheeling  off  through  the 
cool  morning  air  in  search  of  more  bee-worlds  to  conquer, 
they  hung  about  the  entrances  to  their  little  industrial 
homes,  or  flew  lazily  away  from  them  a  short  distance, 
returning  almost  immediately  with  empty  baskets  and  a 
listless  air  of  ennui  that  was  intensely  discouraging  to  the 
capitalistic  hopes  of  their  young  Norwegian  owner. 
Worse  even  than  this  indifference  to  the  nobility  of  in- 
dustrial effort,  a  portion  of  the  bees  displayed  an  ill- 
temper  and  belligerency  that  were  positively  alarming. 
Ordinarily,  while  they  were  busily  carrying  honey,  Hans 
could  approach  the  hive  and  examine  the  sweets  they 
were  storing  there  for  him  and  them  without  any  remon- 
strance from  the  bees.  Now,  however,  while  some  of 
them  seemed  to  be  idling  their  lives  away  in  what  a 
famous  American  has  termed  'innocuous  desuetude/  a 
portion  of  the  little  creatures  appeared  to  become  des- 
perately wicked  in  their  intentions.  If  Hans  approached 
the  hives,  where  they  were  pacing  angrily  back  and 
forth,  not  apparently  gathering  an  ounce  of  honey,  they 
would  dive  at  him  fiercely  with  an  ominously  shrill  buzz 
that  betokened  all  kinds  of  anarchistic  intentions  and 
caused  the  proprietor  to  beat  a  hasty  retreat  from  their 
unreasonably  vicious  attacks.  When  these  apparently 
discontented  insects  could  find  nothing  more  prominent 
on  which  to  vent  their  spleen,  the  unreasonable  creatures 
would  seize  their  associates — either  another  dissatisfied 
worker,  or  sometimes  one  of  their  lazy  companions — and 
then  for  a  little  while  there  would  be  a  veritable  insur- 
rection in  front  of  the  hives,  the  angry  bees  grappling 
viciously  in  the  air  and  rolling  over  and  over  in  the  dust 


KING   MAMMON.  321 

they  had  kicked  up  around  their  formerly  peaceful 
homes. 

"  'Vot  ails  der  bees?  '  thought  Hans,  and  receiving 
no  answer  from  his  inner  consciousness  after  diligently 
scratching  his  flaxen  poll,  he  sought  information  from  a 
number  of  publications  on  bee  economy  that  his  thoughtful 
Teutonic  mind  had  provided  for  an  emergency.  After  con- 
siderable research,  Hans  concluded  that  the  general  gov- 
ernment of  his  bee-colony  was  not  properly  administered, 
so  he  purchased  a  number  of  new  queens  of  different  kinds 
and  introduced  them  one  by  one  into  his  unhappy  little 
communities.  On  the  introduction  of  each  queen,  there 
was  a  tremendous  disturbance  in  the  society,  and  a  great 
sizzing  and  buzzing,  accompanied  by  a  sharp  contest  for 
sovereignty,  after  which  there  was  a  dead  queen  but  no 
apparent  improvement  in  social  conditions. 

"This  experiment  having  failed,  Hans,  suspecting  that 
his  bees  might  have  exhausted  all  the  raw  industrial 
material  available  and  that  new  supplies  would  stimulate 
them  to  further  exertions,  moved  his  hives  into  a  new 
location.  Arising  at  midnight  when  the  aristocrats  and 
anarchists  of  his  social  groups  were  all  slumbering,  he 
fastened  them  securely  within  their  little  doors  and  moved 
the  hives  into  a  new  location  among  the  choicest  honey- 
plants,  where  it  would  seem  that  no  bee  of  the  slightest 
pretensions  to  industrial  morality  could  continue  to 
waste  his  time  in  unproductive  idleness.  For  a  day  or 
two  the  bees  were  active  in  their  new  home  and  went 
about  deliberately  poking  their  noses  into  the  new  flowers 
blossoming  as  the  summer  advanced,  but  they  brought  out 
no  honey  and  were  evidently  actuated  by  mere  curiosity 
and  not  by  any  productive  desires. 

' '  When  they  first  sallied  forth  from  the  hive,  Hans'  spirits 
rose  with  the  hope  that  he  had  solved  the  social  problem, 
but  after  a  few  days  his  wealth-producers  all  went  back 
to  their  old  habits  of  rubbing  noses  and  fighting  on  their 
front  doorsteps,  or  impudently  looking  sidewise  at  the 
sun  without  offering  to  carry  an  ounce  of  honey. 

"Hans  then  began  to  think  that  his  neighbors'  bees 
must  certainly  terrorize  or  at  least  discourage  his  own  in- 
sects in  the  fields  where  they  all  sought  wealth  by  competi- 
tive effort  between  families,  so  he  made  another  midnight 
21 


322  KING  MAMMON. 

visit  to  his  hives,  calked  them  securely,  and,  deciding 
to  give  the  bees  all  the  industrial  protection  that  they 
could  desire,  he  conveyed  them  into  an  adjacent  valley 
surrounded  by  high  cliffs  over  which  no  bee  from  the 
neighboring  swarms  had  strength  enough  to  convey  a  load 
of  honey.  There  was  no  improvement,  however,  in  the 
vile  manners  of  his  swarms,  and  Hans  was  almost  in  de- 
spair when  the  idea  of  a  defective  circulating  medium  oc- 
curred to  his  mind,  and  he  concluded  that  something  must 
be  wrong  with  his  bees'  honey-bags  and  pollen-baskets,  so 
that,  although  the  insects  were  mentally  quite  willing  to 
continue  gathering  honey,  they  were  unable  to  do  so  be- 
cause there  was  a  defect  in  either  the  quantity  or  quality  of 
their  appliances  for  making  the  transfer  from  the  flowers  to 
the  hives.  Accordingly  he  bought  twenty-five  new  swarms 
warranted  to  possess  honey-bags  in  first-class  repair,  and 
smoked  all  the  lazy  and  quarrelsome  culprits  out  of  their 
once  comfortable  homes,  calling  them  vagabonds  and 
nihilists,  and  saying  something  in  choice  reversed  Swede- 
English  about  people  not  working  who  didn't  eat.  The 
bee-rancher  was  almost  heartbroken,  however,  to  see 
that  new  bees  with  different  honey-bags  did  not  work  any 
better  than  his  old  ones,  and,  as  a  final  resort,  he  sought 
the  valuable  advice  of  experience  from  an  older  student 
of  bee-sociology.  The  first  inquiry  made  by  the  older  bee 
keeper  after  hearing  his  complaint  was,  '  Did  you  take 
the  honey  out  ? '  Hans  had  not  ;  he  wanted  to  see  a  very 
large  accumulation  before  he  disturbed  it.  '  I  guess  your 
bees  are  eating  it,  then,'  said  his  mentor,  'and  they'll 
not  work  any  more  till  you  give  them  room.' " 

Hans  was  a  marvelously  stupid  fellow,  say  you,  my 
reader?  Well,  was  he  really  more  stupid  than  you  and  I 
and  all  other  people  (including  Messrs.  Wells  and  Atkin- 
son and  Mallock),  who  blindly  go  on  in  collective  indus- 
trial effort  to  store  up  wealth  in  our  social  hive,  not  re- 
membering that  all  wealth  is  intended  ultimately  for  con- 
sumption, and  that  whenever  it  accumulates  in  great 
bodies,  the  producers  must  eat  it  ere  they  produce  more  ? 
Think  of  these  things  carefully  and  then  say  whether 


KING   MAMMON.  323 

those  writers  who  preach  an  eternity  of  production,  neg- 
lecting meanwhile  all  that  relates  to  distribution  and 
consumption,  are  really  wiser  than  the  simple-minded 
Norwegian  who  attempted  to  regulate  the  industry  of  his 
bees  by  the  same  social  methods  we  are  using.  Believe 
me,  John  Ruskin  is  right  when  he  says  : 

"THERE  is  NO  WEALTH  BUT  LIFE.  Life,  including  all  its 
powers  of  love,  of  joy,  and  of  admiration.  That  country 
is  the  richest  which  nourishes  the  greatest  number  of 
noble  and  happy  human  beings  ;  that  man  is  richest  who, 
having  perfected  the  functions  of  his  own  life  to  the 
utmost,  has  also  the  widest  helpful  influence,  both  per- 
sonal and  by  means  of  his  possessions,  over  the  lives  of 
others." 


CHAPTER   XV. 

THE  LAND  OF  NOAHME. 

"  The  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof ;  the  "world,  and  they 
that  dwell  therein.  .  .  .  Woe  unto  them  that  join  house  to  hotise,  that  lay 
field  to  field,  till  there  be  no  place,  that  they  may  be  placed  alone  in  the 
midst  of  the  earth.  .  .  .  Break  off  thy  sins  by  righteousness  and  thine 
iniquities  by  showing  mercy  to  the  poor" — Bible. 

RECENT  historical  researches  by  some  of  the  modern 
Hebrews,  who  are  inclined  to  accept  a  few  of  the  latter- 
day  teachings  of  the  race  as  embodied  in  the  writings  of 
Ferdinand  Lassalle  and  Karl  Marx,  have  brought  to  light 
certain  ancient  manuscripts  supposed  to  be  fragments 
of  the  works  of  Josephus,  and  to  have  been  omitted 
from  all  the  editions  of  that  writer's  history  which  have 
hitherto  been  published.  Like  all  other  ancient  history, 
this  newly  discovered  record  is  somewhat  vague  and  in- 
consistent in  its  details,  and  perhaps  it  may  not  be  very 
reliable  in  all  its  particulars,  but  it  at  least  furnishes  some 


324  KING   MAMMON. 

interesting  data  concerning  the  progress  of  social  institu- 
tions among  the  Jews,  which  are  not  otherwise  obtainable. 
Translated  into  a  peculiar  dialect  of  everyday  English 
as  it  is,  but  ought  not  to  be  spoken,  the  story  is  as  follows  : 

"  When  Noah  with  his  three  sons,  Shem,  Ham,  and  Ja- 
pheth,  descended  from  the  ark  to  take  a  look  at  the 
surrounding  country  and  the  subsiding  waters,  they 
searched  in  vain  for  a  dry  rock  to  sit  down  upon.  On 
thoroughly  comprehending  the  situation,  however,  the  old 
gentleman  was  filled  with  a  consuming  sense  of  his  own 
importance,  for  he  realized  that  in  being  the  head  of  his 
own  family  and  in  thus  attending  the  funeral  of  all  the 
other  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  who  had  just  been  drowned 
like  rats  in  their  holes,  he  had  also  become  the  monarch 
of  a  great  deal  more  than  he  surveyed  even  from  his 
lofty  position  on  Mount  Ararat,  and  therefore,  by  pri- 
ority of  occupation  and  undisturbed  possession,  he  was 
sole  proprietor  of  the  entire  earth — at  least  until  the  boys 
became  of  the  proper  age  to  imagine  that  they  ought  to 
control  the  universe. 

"  Like  thousands  of  other  men  among  his  descendants, 
Noah  was  exceedingly  proud  of  being  the  owner  of  a 
vast  estate,  and  he  was  immediately  filled  with  a  very 
natural  desire  to  perpetuate  the  lands  in  his  family  in  a 
way  that  would  hand  his  name  down  to  posterity.  Acting 
on  this  impulse,  he  gave  to  his  newly  acquired  estate 
the  name  of  Noahme,  and  decided  that  he  would  entail 
the  property  on  the  direct  male  descendants  of  his  eldest 
son,  Shem,  who  had  assiduously  courted  his  father's  favor 
by  taking  personal  charge  of  the  snakes,  skunks,  and  other 
disagreeable  passengers  among  their  cargo  of  live-stock. 

However,  at  that  time  Noah  did  not  know  that  pro- 
crastination is  the  thief  of  time,  this  great  truth  being  dis- 
covered and  announced  several  years  later.  He  found 
that  all  the  time  he  had  was  quite  busily  occupied  in  seeing 
that  his  consignment  of  animals  was  carefully  located  in 
situations  favorable  to  the  necessities  of  their  existence, 
and  at  the  same  time  in  giving  a  patriarchal  supervision 
to  the  increasing  demands  of  his  family.  Engrossed  with 
these  parental  duties,  he  postponed  the  formal  entailing 
of  his  estate,  being  considerably  worried  by  the  rapid 


KING  MAMMON.  325 

increase  and  phenomenal  voracity  of  such  vermin  as 
fleas  and  mosquitoes,  which  had  multiplied  at  a  tremen- 
dous rate  after  being  set  at  liberty.  While  occupied 
with  these  vexations,  and  wondering  whether  he  had  not 
made  a  serious  mistake  in  permitting  them  to  take  pas- 
sage on  his  boat,  and  whether  life  was  really  worth  living 
in  their  intimate  association,  Noah  fell  sick  and  died 
suddenly  without  making  any  will.  As  the  lawyers  say, 
he  died  intestate. 

"  After  the  funeral,  at  which  there  was  a  very  large  at- 
tendance, a  meeting  of  the  heirs  was  held  to  provide  fora 
distribution  of  the  property.  All  had,  at  first,  great  ex- 
pectations. Shem,  however,  who  was  naturally  very 
well  adapted  to  the  practice  of  law,  and  who  entertained 
a  very  sincere  respect  for  the  authority  of  established 
precedents,  claimed  control  of  the  entire  property  by 
operation  of  the  well-defined  and  established  rule  of 
primogeniture,  he  being  the  eldest  son.  He  showed  con- 
clusively by  certain  records  preserved  in  the  ark,  that 
such  had  been  the  custom  of  their  forefathers,  and  argued 
that  custom  necessarily  made  not  only  law  but  justice. 
The  younger  sons,  being  comparatively  ignorant  of  these 
well  understood  social  theories,  owing  to  their  youth  and 
inexperience,  at  first  debated  these  points  considerably 
and  protested  mildly  against  Shem's  claims,  inquiring  why 
they  had  no  right  to  control  any  of  the  property,  but  their 
elder  brother  was  firm  in  his  position,  though  very  kind. 
He  cited  the  traditions  of  life  before  the  flood,  showing 
the  young  men  that  the  succession  of  the  eldest  son 
had  long  existed  in  the  very  best  of  families,  from  time 
immemorial,  and  that  nobody  but  vile,  rebellious  anar- 
chists from  the  lowest  social  levels,  filled  with  a  demoniac 
hatred  of  their  fellow-creatures,  had  ever  questioned  the 
correctness  of  the  principle.  The  young  fellows  did  not 
know  exactly  what  an  anarchist  was,  and  consequently 
had  to  take  Shem's  word  for  it,  but  having,  like  most 
other  people,  a  very  sincere  regard  for  social  customs  and 
the  sacred  institutions  of  the  past,  they  did  not  relish  the 
idea  of  being  considered  cranky  individuals  who  enter- 
tained peculiar  notions,  so  they  made  no  further  objection 
to  Shem's  desires,  and  he  very  kindly,  although  reserving 
full  power  of  control,  offered  to  permit  them  to  have  free 


326  KING   MAMMON. 

access  to  the  estate  as  tenants  so  long  as  he  lived,  and  to 
continue  undisturbed  in  their  occupations  of  gathering 
fruits  and  nuts,  or  chasing  certain  kinds  of  animals  suit- 
able to  their  sustenance,  which  had  by  this  time  increased 
in  numbers  to  an  astonishing  degree.  He  also  notified 
them  that  the  ark  was  entirely  at  their  disposal  in  case 
they  desired  to  enjoy  another  voyage. 

"The  young  men  were  quite  well  satisfied  with  this 
arrangement,  for  they  had  free  use  of  the  place  and  did 
not  consider  that  the  mere  form  of  a  title  made  any  real 
difference  to  them.  Ham's  wife,  however,  was  a 
vixen,  and  on  hearing  her  husband  assent  to  what  she 
considered  an  unfair  distribution,  she  turned  so  black 
in  the  face  that  some  of  her  descendants  are  similarly 
affected  to  this  day. 

"After  this  settlement  of  family  property,  life  went  on 
quite  smoothly  among  the  descendants  of  Noah  for  many 
years.  The  domesticated  animals  thrived  and  became 
more  and  more  numerous,  the  fruits  remained  plentiful, 
and,  as  there  was  abundant  room  for  all  the  people  without 
crowding,  there  were  few  disputes.  As  Shem  could  not 
use  all  the  land  he  claimed,  he  was  more  tolerant  of  the 
needs  of  his  brothers  than  those  who  own  large  estates 
usually  are.  Ham  and  Japheth  did  not  distress  their 
minds  by  any  great  amount  of  thinking  about  the  merits 
or  justice  of  the  claims  established  by  their  elder  brother. 
They  had  the  substance  of  their  desires  and  did  not 
think  it  was  wise  to  worry  about  titles.  Although  the 
two  younger  brothers  were  satisfied,  Ham's  wife  unfor- 
tunately persisted  in  stirring  up  theoretical  discussions 
occasionally  concerning  the  actual  rights  that  Shem  had 
to  the  exclusive  ownership  of  the  territory  he  controlled, 
and  thus  by  degrees  she  gained  the  opprobrious  name  of 
anarchist,  because,  foolish  woman  that  she  was,  she 
wanted  continually  to  know  where  her  rights  came  in. 
These  early  sociological  disputes  never  extended  farther 
than  a  mere  discussion,  for  about  the  time  that  Mrs.  Ham 
became  well  advanced  in  her  argument  upon  the  right  of 
property,  she  was  invariably  compelled  to  neglect  public 
duty  in  order  to  attend  to  more  pressing  maternal  obli- 
gations, for  by  this  time  there  was  a  very  numerous  colony 
of  little  Hams  in  existence,  as  well  as  other  piggish  speci- 


KING   MAMMON.  327 

mens  of  the  race,  who  were,  even  at  this  early  date,  begin- 
ning to  creep  into  the  world,  with  apparently  no  share  in 
it.  On  this  account,  her  arguments  on  the  social  problem 
were  rarely  completed,  and  were  not  at  all  convincing, 
especially  as  she  was  a  woman  rather  hasty  in  her  con- 
clusions and  known  to  be  somewhat  violent  in  temper. 

"Finally,  when  her  incessant  repetition  of  her  peculiar 
views  became  rather  monotonous  and  annoying,  Shem 
declared  that  such  ideas  were  destructive  of  law  and  order, 
and  contrary  to  the  peace  and  welfare  of  society,  and  that 
if  Mrs.  Ham  wished  to  continue  to  occupy  his  possessions, 
she  must  observe  a  proper  respect  for  established  insti- 
tutions, and  shut  up  ;  otherwise  she  might,  if  she  pleased, 
vacate  his  property.  There  being  no  railroad  to  the  moon 
at  that  time,  Mrs.  Ham,  who  was  wiser  than  the  foolish 
anarchists  of  a  later  day,  made  a  remarkably  successful 
effort,  for  a  woman,  in  holding  her  tongue. 

"This  little  embryo  anarchy  having  been  suppressed 
by  the  strong  arm  of  government,  in  the  proper  protection 
of  the  true  interests  of  society,  there  were  no  other  social 
troubles  during  the  existence  of  Shem.  Mrs.  Ham  re- 
mained discontented,  but  as  the  government  denounced 
her,  and  her  associates  laughed  at  her  when  she  discussed 
social  questions  from  her  standpoint,  she  ceased  preach- 
ing the  gospel  of  discontent,  and  the  intricate  problem  of 
the  proper  distribution  of  earthly  opportunities  received 
no  further  attention.  In  later  life,  Mrs.  Ham  subsided  en- 
tirely into  that  sphere  of  domestic  duties  which  all  correct 
moral  teaching  has  shown  to  be  the  right  place  for  woman. 

"  When  Shem  died  he  left  two  sons — Elam  and  Lud,  the 
other  boys  having  unfortunately  died  before  their  paternal 
ancestor  was  ready  to  succumb  to  the  inevitable.  During 
the  early  existence  of  these  sons,  their  father,  like  Noah, 
had  contemplated  the  entailing  of  his  estate  on  Elam  as 
the  eldest,  and  after  him  on  the  direct  line  of  eldest  male 
descendants,  but  as  the  boys  grew  towards  maturity  at 
the  age  of  about  two  hundred  years,  he  noted  that  Elam 
was  shrewd,  selfish,  and  grasping,  his  financial  policy 
apparently  being  to  get  all  he  could  and  keep  all  he  got. 
Lud,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  sociable,  liberal  fellow, 
who  rapidly  made  friends  among  all  the  young  cousins 
scattered  about  his  father's  domains,  for  by  this  time  there 


328  KING  MAMMON. 

were  numerous  little  Hams  and  Japheths  in  the  world, 
public  and  private  sentiment  in  those  days  being  very 
strongly  in  favor  of  populating  the  earth  and  quite  dif- 
ferent in  that  respect  from  later  social  developments. 
On  account  of  the  greedy  nature  ofElam,  Shem  was  afraid 
to  permit  the  estate  to  descend  unbroken  lest  Lud  should 
not  receive  kind  treatment  at  the  hands  of  his  selfish 
brother  if  the  latter  became  sole  heir.  Accordingly,  the 
father  abandoned  his  original  intention  and  made  a  will 
dividing  the  estate  equally  into  two  portions,  leaving  one- 
half  of  the  earth  to  each  of  his  two  sons.  By  the  provi- 
sions of  this  last  will  and  testament,  which  was  prepared 
and  executed  with  all  the  solemnity  that  attaches  to  the 
sacred  nature  of  such  documents,  the  entire  earth  was 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  Elam  and  Lud,  while  the  nu- 
merous disinherited  sons  of  Ham  and  Japheth  skipped 
around  wherever  they  were  permitted  to  exist  by  the 
more  fortunate  owners,  entertaining  a  few  vague  ideas  that 
something  was  wrong  in  the  world,  but  entirely  unable 
to  show  any  illegality  in  the  proceedings.  The  reveren- 
tial Japheths  were  usually  content  with  saying  that  the 
condition  did  not  seem  exactly  right,  but  that  as  God 
perhaps  intended  that  it  should  be  that  way,  they  could 
not  question  His  will.  The  fiery  blood  of  Mrs.  Ham 
seemed  to  descend  to  her  children,  and  as  they  were  not 
in  high  favor  with  the  two  owners  on  account  of  their  un- 
pleasant abruptness  of  speech  and  foolish  habit  of  saying 
what  they  thought,  the  young  Hams  became  somewhat 
embittered  and  rebellious.  They  had  so  much  to  say 
about  what  they  called  their  natural  rights,  in  spite  of  the 
abundant  proof  on  every  hand  that  no  such  things  ever 
existed,  and  about  the  injustice  of  social  conditions,  that 
Elam  and  Lud  both  decided  that  the  good  of  society  and 
the  protection  of  the  people  demanded  that  proper  police 
and  military  regulations  should  be  adopted.  Accordingly, 
they  established  especially  friendly  relations  with  some  of 
their  cousins  who  were  not  imbued  with  the  vile  anarchist 
spirit,  destructive  of  society,  peace,  property,  and  good 
government,  and  after  showing  these  young  men  some 
particular  favors,  the  two  proprietors  and  leaders  of  the 
social  system  of  Noahme,  assured  these  well-disposed 
cousins  that  if  they  would  contrive  to  have  a  few  reliable 


KING  MAMMON.  329 

clubs  ready  with  which  to  suppress  a  possible  insurrection 
and  soundly  punish  the  ill-tempered  descendants  of  Mrs. 
Ham  whenever  the  latter  failed  to  show  a  proper  deference 
to  established  authority,  they  would,  as  peace-officers 
and  worthy,  law-abiding  citizens  not  be  losers  by  the 
transaction. 

"Thus  social  life  in  the  land  of  Noahme  progressed  for 
many  years  after  Shem's  death.  The  socialists  and  com- 
munists and  anarchists  and  cranks — for  these  were  the 
names  applied  to  the  bitterly  discontented  people,  com- 
prising most  of  Mrs.  Ham's  descendants  and  a  few  of  the 
more  belligerent  Japheths — had  much  to  say  in  private 
about  tyranny,  and  equal  rights,  and  freedom,  and  a  lot  of 
other  things  that  they  did  not  understand  and  could  not 
be  made  to  understand.  Public  discussion  was  not 
fashionable,  however,  for  the  Hams  and  Japheths 
realized  that  they  were  in  some  danger  of  having  what 
little  brains  they  possessed  knocked  entirely  out  by  the 
newly-organized  corps  of  anarchy-whackers,  who  were 
now  valiantly  attempting  to  maintain  law  and  order. 
Many  of  their  other  cousins  had  established  relations  more 
or  less  friendly  with  Elam  and  Lud,  and  their  legal  con- 
dition, whether  equitable  or  inequitable,  being  satisfactory 
to  themselves,  they  were  not  inclined  to  sympathize  with 
the  disaffected  citizens  of  Noahme.  These  more  contented 
and  prosperous  Hams  and  Japheths  informed  their  dissat- 
isfied relatives  that  if  they  would  accept  social  institutions 
as  they  found  them,  quit  fighting  what  they  could  not  over- 
come, be  energetic  according  to  their  stations  in  life,  and, 
especially,  be  respectful  and  subservient  to  those  above 
them  in  social  rank,  they  would  thus  reap  all  the  reward 
on  earth  to  which  they  were  really  entitled,  and  a  good 
deal  more  than  they  would  secure  by  perpetually  struggling 
against  the  laws  of  Nature,  which  never  had  produced 
equality  and  which  never  would.  Some  of  the  reverential 
Japheths  also  kindly  admonished  them  to  be  patient ;  for, 
even  if  things  did  appear  somewhat  out  of  joint  in  this 
world,  they  would  be  completely  adjusted  in  the  next. 

"This  well-meant  advice  did  not  satisfy  the  more  re- 
bellious spirits  of  Cush  and  Phat,  who  resembled  their 
fault-finding  ancestor  very  much,  and  these  desperate  an- 
archists, mounting  a  convenient  stump,  declared  vocifer- 


330  KING   MAMMON. 

ously  that  Elam  and  Lud  were  tyrants  for  controlling  so 
much  property,  and  that  if  their  brains  were  hammered 
out  with  a  rock,  the  world  would  be  left  in  a  better  condi- 
tion. The  entire  community  was  shocked  by  these  horrible 
assertions,  for  nearly  every  member  of  it  knew  that  if 
he  had  been  in  the  place  of  Elam  and  Lud,  he  would  have 
done  exactly  the  same  things  ;  so  when  the  clubs  of  the 
newly-organized  police  force  descended  on  the  foolish 
heads  of  Cush  and  Phat,  and  hammered  all  the  anarchism 
out  of  them,  there  was  a  general  approval  in  Noahme, 
and  little  sympathy  was  wasted  on  the  offenders.  The 
governmental  authorities  decided  that  such  vermin  should 
be  promptly  exterminated,  and  all  the  stumps  in  the  com- 
munity were  placed  under  a  strict  surveillance. 

"It  must  not  be  supposed  that  these  anarchic  disturb- 
ances were  of  daily  occurrence  in  Noahme.  For  many 
years  after  the  suppression  of  this  incipient  revolt,  the  re- 
lations between  Shem's  sons  and  their  cousins  were  quite 
amicable,  although  there  was  considerable  envy  in  a 
mild,  harmless  form  among  the  female  descendants  of 
Ham  and  Japheth,  when  they  looked  upon  the  comfortable 
domiciles  provided  for  Mrs.  Elam  and  Mrs.  Lud,  and 
compared  those  elegant  accommodations  with  their  own 
modest  homes.  It  was  also  somewhat  irritating  at  times 
for  Mrs.  Ham's  daughters  to  hear  Mrs.  Lud,  who  was 
quite  proud  of  her  family  history,  talk  about  how  "our 
ancestors  traced  their  descent  from  the  ark,"  and  to  hear 
her  warn  the  young  Luds  not  to  mingle  too  freely  with 
common  folk.  During  these  years,  the  lot  of  those  who 
possessed  no  estates  was  not  particularly  hard  or  even  dis- 
agreeable. They  were  permitted  to  occupy  the  lands  of 
the  two  brothers  and  to  pasture  domestic  animals  thereon 
by  paying  a  very  reasonable  rent  for  the  privilege.  Each 
Ham  or  Japheth  was  expected  to  return  to  the  owners  a 
share  of  whatever  game,  fish,  or  fruit  was  obtained  from 
the  property.  He  was  allowed  most  of  the  milk  from  the 
herds  and  an  animal  now  and  then  for  meat,  but  no  actual 
ownership  of  the  animals  was  permitted  to  the  tenants  by 
the  owners,  for  Elam  always  insisted  that  such  a  privilege 
would  be  granting  entirely  too  much  to  people  who 
owned  no  land.  He  also  showed  very  plainly  that  the 
Hams  andjapheths  must  necessarily  accede  to  any  terms 


KING   MAMMON.  33! 

offered  to  them,  if  they  wanted  to  raise  cattle,  for  they 
had  no  other  pasturage.  The  surplus  wealth  resulting  to 
Elam  and  Lud  from  these  rents  was  used  by  the  two 
brothers  in  their  own  family  consumption,  in  reward- 
ing those  cousins  who  assisted  them  in  keeping  their 
houses  and  grounds  in  order,  and  in  maintaining  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  force  used  to  preserve  social  order. 

The  liberality  that  was  developed  so  early  in  the  dis- 
position of  Lud  continued  with  him  in  later  life.  He  was 
exceedingly  kind  to  his  cousin-tenants,  and  seldom  ex- 
acted more  rent  than  the  comfort  of  his  family  required 
for  their  adequate  support  and  the  necessities  of  efficient 
police  supervision  demanded.  It  is  true  that  Mrs.  Lud  was 
sometimes  extravagant  in  her  ideas  concerning  the  proper 
attributes  of  a  lady  in  her  station,  and  Mr.  Lud  was, 
therefore,  compelled  occasionally  to  raise  the  rent  on  that 
account ;  but  he  always  did  it  so  pleasantly  and  with  so 
evident  an  interest  in  the  welfare  of  his  tenants,  that  many 
of  the  Japheths,  who  were  only  slightly  discontented, 
were  heard  to  remark  that  if  Elam  were  like  Lud,  the 
social  structure  ofNoahme  would  be  about  right  as  it  was. 
This  remark  was  repeated  to  Phat,  who  was  still  sore- 
headed  from  the  beating  he  had  received  while  making 
his  stump  speech.  He  snorted  contemptuously  and  grinned 
with  scorn,  but  said  nothing,  for  the  anarchists  were 
wiser  then  than  they  had  been  before  or  have  been  since. 
The  kind-hearted  young  Japheth  who  spoke  to  Phat  looked 
puzzled  when  he  saw  his  friend's  scornful  expression,  and 
wondered  what  ailed  the  man  that  he  could  not  agree  with 
such  obviously  correct  sentiments. 

"In  times  of  scarcity  Lud  was  often  known  to  remit 
temporarily  the  collection  of  rent,  and  during  this  un- 
favorable period  he  magnanimously  consented  to  live 
from  the  stores  his  cousins  had  already  accumulated  for 
him,  without  pressing  them  when  paying  rent  would  be 
a  real  hardship.  On  account  of  these  many  virtues  he 
was  regarded  by  his  contemporaries  as  the  noblest  of 
human  beings,  and  was  generally  esteemed  in  Noahme 
as  a  philanthropist.  Even  the  most  destructive  of  the 
anarchists  did  not  seriously  threaten  to  crack  his  skull 
with  their  rocks,  though  some  of  them  made  wild 
speeches  at  their  secret  meetings  in  the  caves  to  the  effect 


332  KING  MAMMON. 

that  Lud  represented  a  social  evil,  and  that  they  declared 
death  to  all  tyranny. 

"But  the  good  always  die  young,  and  Lud  passed 
away  before  his  brother  Elam,  leaving  neither  wife  nor 
children,  for  typhoid  fever  broke  out  in  the  Lud  house- 
hold, owing  to  defective  sanitation  incidental  to  the 
times.  Before  his  death  he  performed  an  act  of  sublime 
benevolence  by  giving  his  entire  herd  of  cattle  to  those 
cousins  who  had  raised  them  on  his  land.  When  the 
gift  was  made  known,  Lud  was  hailed  as  the  benefactor 
of  his  race  by  all  except  Elam,  who  merely  smiled  rather 
cynically.  The  will  of  Lud  decreed  that  all  the  surplus 
wealth  collected  from  his  tenants  and  accumulated  in  his 
hands  should  be  used  in  securing  the  services  of  such 
cousins  as  were  willing  to  labor  in  exchange  for  it,  to 
build  a  high  stone  monument  to  mark  his  resting-place. 
The  landed  property  was  all  bequeathed  to  his  brother 
Elam,  as  Lud  felt  that  it  was  his  duty  to  retain  it  in  the 
family.  Elam  immediately  took  possession  of  his  new 
property,  and  being  an  excellent  financier,  one  of  those 
characters  to  whom  society  is  greatly  indebted  for  the  ac- 
cumulation of  capital  and  consequent  progress,  he  im- 
mediately proceeded  to  raise  the  rents  up  to  what  he 
thought  the  traffic  would  bear. 

"The  work  of  constructing  Lud's  monument  was  com- 
menced promptly  and  carried  on  vigorously  by  his  en- 
thusiastic and  devoted  cousins,  who  were  so  impressed 
by  the  final  exhibition  of  his  generosity  that  they  were 
quite  willing  to  construct  the  tomb  themselves  for 
nothing.  They  commenced  the  monument  on  an  ex- 
tensive scale,  in  order  to  bestow  all  possible  honor  upon 
their  deceased  patron,  and  by  the  time  the  structure  was 
half  completed,  the  stores  set  aside  by  Lud  for  building 
it  were  exhausted.  Notwithstanding  this  lamentable 
condition,  however,  the  laborers  still  bravely  persevered, 
and  ultimately  completed  the  work  at  their  own  expense, 
though  it  was  a  tedious  process,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
their  daily  subsistence  with  that  of  their  families  was 
necessarily  to  be  maintained  in  addition  to  the  work  done 
on  the  monument. 

"  When  the  great  cap-stone  of  the  monument  was  carved 
and  ready  to  be  hoisted  into  its  place,  the  workmen  pre- 


KING   MAMMON.  333 

pared  to  celebrate  the  day  in  honor  of  Lud's  memory. 
Their  religious  leader  had  prepared  a  beautiful  discourse 
on  the  virtues  of  charity  and  benevolence  and  the  beauties 
of  heavenly  compensation  for  earthly  wrongs ;  their 
orator  was  ready  with  finely- rounded  sentences  concern- 
ing Lud's  memory  as  the  Father  of  his  People ;  and  the 
poet  had  prepared  twenty-one  eulogistic  stanzas  bearing 
the  same  burden  of  praise.  In  the  midst  of  these  prepa- 
rations, a  messenger,  one  of  the  clubmen  of  Elam's 
brigade,  arrived  with  a  communication  from  the  owner 
of  the  estate,  informing  his  tenants  that  if  they  desired  to 
complete  the  monument,  they  must  first  pay  him  for  the 
stone  they  had  used  from  his  premises,  by  returning  a 
fair  remuneration  in  labor. 

The  Hams  and  Japheths  were  thunderstruck  at  first,  and 
were  disposed  to  dispute  the  validity  of  this  claim.  They 
had  become  so  accustomed  to  take  and  use  whatever 
they  desired  from  the  land,  that,  although  they  dimly 
understood  that  they  were  not  actually  owners,  they 
nevertheless  supposed  that  they  were  really  entitled  to 
such  privileges  as  had  been  merely  accorded  to  them  by 
sufferance.  There  was  a  hasty  conference  with  Elam, 
and  the  laborers'  orator  made  a  fine  argument  to  the 
effect  that  there  should  be  no  payment  because  the  stone 
came  from  a  quarry  on  his  brother's  land,  and  they 
were  merely  erecting  his  brother's  monument ;  but  Elam 
soon  convinced  them  that  they  knew  nothing  about  law 
and  government,  and  that  he  had  absolutely  nothing  to 
do  with  monuments  for  Lud.  As  he  well  expressed  the 
question,  it  was  purely  a  matter  of  business.  The  posi- 
tion he  occupied  was  that  he  owned  the  land,  and  that 
if  they  expected  to  use  it  for  any  purpose  whatever,  they 
must  pay  a  reasonable  compensation.  There  was  some 
talk  of  a  contest,  but  the  monument  had  to  be  finished, 
the  oration  delivered,  and  the  poem  read.  It  was  consid- 
ered that  the  additional  expense  was  a  small  matter,  so 
the  workmen  consented  to  Elam's  demands  and  went  on 
with  their  ceremonies,  which  were  long-  held  in  remem- 
brance in  the  land  of  Noahme. 

"As  soon  as  the  monument  business  was  transacted 
on  correct  principles  and  everything  successfully  adjusted, 
Elam  notified  his  cousins  that  if  they  expected  to  keep 


334  KING   MAMMON. 

the  cattle  they  had  received  from  Lud-on  his  land,  they 
would  have  to  divide  the  profits  of  the  business  with  him. 
A  contract  was  arranged  on  this  basis  after  some  com- 
plaint from  the  cattle-owners  ;  but,  notwithstanding  their 
dissatisfaction,  these  cousin-tenants  could  not  but  ac- 
knowledge that  Elam  was  entitled  to  rent  for  the  use  of 
his  land,  and  that  as  they  possessed  none,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  lease  land  for  the  support  of  their  cattle.  They 
were  so  inflated  with  the  idea  of  having  some  cattle  of 
their  own,  that  they  did  not  seriously  or  persistently  ob- 
ject to  paying  rent  for  pasturage,  although  it  absorbed  a 
large  part  of  the  increase  of  their  herds,  which  went 
mainly  to  sustain  the  increasing  numbers  of  anarchist 
fighters  that  were  deemed  necessary  to  preserve  social 
order  in  Noahme. 

"Elam  also  introduced  a  new  adjustment  of  the  rates 
on  gathering  cocoanuts  soon  after  his  exclusive  owner- 
ship began.  The  tenants  had  formerly  paid  the  joint 
heirs  four  cocoanuts  out  of  every  ten  they  gathered,  and 
this  rate  having  developed  into  a  custom,  the  people 
were  satisfied.  Elam  wished  to  enlarge  his  corps  of 
social  protectors,  however,  so  he  notified  the  tenants  that 
they  must  pay  over  six  cocoanuts  out  of  ten.  There 
was  much  complaint  among  the  young  and  hot-headed 
cocoanut  laborers,  and  some  of  the  Hams  denounced 
Elam  as  a  monopolist,  saying  that  those  who  gathered 
cocoanuts  were  really  entitled  to  all  they  produced,  and 
that  not  one  solitary  cocoanut  out  of  a  million  should 
justly  be  paid  over  to  anybody.  Such  speeches  as  these 
were  always  made  when  the  peace  officers  of  the  com- 
munity were  enjoying  a  vacation  and  giving  their  clubs 
a  rest  during  a  relaxation  from  the  duties  of  their  respon- 
sible positions.  The  wiser  heads  among  the  cocoanut  men 
did  not  entirely  approve  these  rash  utterances.  They 
pointed  out  the  fact  that  Elam  unquestionably  owned  the 
rest  of  the  earth  exactly  as  they  owned  their  cattle,  and  that 
he  had  the  same  right  to  the  one  that  they  had  to  the 
other.  These  speakers  admitted  that  there  was  something 
puzzling  about  the  matter,  and  at  first  it  really  looked  as 
if  the  men  who  gathered  the  cocoanuts  were  entitled  to 
them,  but  it  was  not  logical  to  deny  Elam  the  privilege 
of  rents  if  he  were  entitled  to  the  earth  and  had  a  perfect 


KING   MAMMON.  335 

record  of  its  legal  transmission  from  his  ancestors.  The 
hot-heads  then  proposed  that  they  should  quit  working 
for  Elam,  let  him  gather  his  own  cocoanuts,  and  that  the 
laborers  should  proceed  to  achieve  an  independent  exist- 
ence for  themselves.  This  proposition  met  with  great 
applause  till  a  gray-beard  arose  and  mildly  stated  that  an 
independent  existence  would  be  exceedingly,  desirable, 
but  that  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  accomplish  under 
the  social  system  that  prevailed  in  Noahme,  as  there 
was  no  means  of  communication  with  the  moon  and  no 
public  land  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  He  advised  the 
rash  youths  who  proposed  to  carve  out  a  career  for 
themselves,  to  consider  their  opportunities  a  little  more 
closely  before  they  acted  decisively  and  burned  their 
bridges  behind  them. 

"After  considerable  further  discussion,  a  wise  regard  for 
existing  conditions  and  vested  rights  prevailed  over  the 
tendency  toward  radical  thought,  and  the  cousins  went 
back  to  gathering  cocoanuts  at  the  reduced  wages  of  four 
cocoanuts  out  of  ten.  Their  compensation  was  not  very 
satisfactory,  and  considerable  ill-feeling  developed,  but 
they  were  able  to  secure  increased  quantities  of  nuts 
by  contriving  better  means  of  climbing  the  trees.  They 
were,  on 'this  account,  still  quite  prosperous,  and  Elam 
secured  a  new  lot  of  heavier  clubs  for  his  anarchist 
fighters,  increased  their  numbers,  and  employed  a  por- 
tion of  the  men  in  beautifying  the  grounds  about  his 
residence. 

"The  conditions  of  labor  and  capital  and  their  future 
prospects  were  the  subjects  of  much  discussion  among 
the  inhabitants  of  Noahme  after  this  reduction  in  wages, 
and  the  proper  course  of  procedure  in  case  of  another 
reduction  involved  a  great  deal  of  controversy.  An 
irascible,  domineering  young  upstart  (several  genera- 
tions removed  from  Mrs.  Ham),  with  little  reverence  for 
established  authority,  suggested  that  the  cocoanut  hands 
should  all  unite  in  a  secret  brotherhood  with  signs  and 
grips,  passwords,  constitutions,  and  by-laws,  so  that 
instead  of  representing  diverse  sentiments,  the  associa- 
tion would  thereafter  act  as  one  man.  If  another 
reduction  in  cocoanut  percentage  were  demanded,  he 
proposed  that  the  association  should  refuse  to  gather  any 


336  KING  MAMMON. 

nuts  at  the  reduced  rates  and  let  Elam  and  his  anarchy- 
whackers  climb  the  trees  themselves  or  starve  at  their 
own  pleasure.  There  was  some  dissension  over  the 
proposed  union,  and  a  number  of  fault-finders  suggested 
that  if  young  Mr.  Ham  were  in  Elam's  place  he  would 
require  even  more  cocoanut-rent  than  the  latter  did. 
Notwithstanding  this  natural  habit  of  finding  fault  with 
the  wrong  side  of  human  nature,  the  union  was  finally 
perfected  by  the  laborers,  and  all  who  joined  it  agreed 
that  on  sufficient  provocation  they  would  refuse  to  gather 
any  more  cocoanuts.  The  organizer  of  the  union  wanted 
a  few  cocoanuts  now  and  then  for  his  trouble  in  pulling 
it  together,  and  this  feature  of  the  organization  was  not 
very  popular.  Some  of  the  men  who  only  gathered 
cocoanuts  occasionally  refused  to  join  the  association  on 
account  of  the  cocoanuts  they  had  to  put  up  from  their 
share  in  order  to  keep  up  the  organization,  and  these 
low-spirited  fellows  were  regarded  with  much  contempt 
by  the  members  of  the  cocoanut  union. 

"  Finally  there  occurred  a  hard  season  in  Noahme. 
Cocoanuts  were  scarce.  Paying  over  six  from  ten  for 
rent  meant  hard  work  and  not  much  in  it,  so  the  laborers 
said,  and  they  demanded  a  better  rate.  Elam  listened 
to  their  protests,  but  he  declared  that  his  own  revenues 
were  greatly  depleted  by  hard  times,  and  that  he  was  not 
receiving  enough  from  his  estate  to  maintain  his  club 
brigade  or  to  keep  his  grounds  in  order,  so  he  declined 
to  make  better  terms.  He  addressed  a  meeting  of  the 
laborers  at  some  length  and  showed  Very  conclusively 
that  the  interests  of  capital  and  labor  are  identical ;  that 
when  one  suffers,  both  suffer ;  and  that  the  greatest 
blessing  that  laborers  can  have  is  a  great  number  of 
cocoanut-trees  in  the  possession  of  somebody  else,  with 
a  large  crop  of  nuts  ready  to  be  gathered,  and  to  thus 
afford  them  employment.  He  proved  clearly  that  he  was 
not  to  blame  for  the  fact  that  there  were  few  cocoanuts 
to  be  gathered  during  this  particular  season.  He  regretted 
sincerely  that  labor  was  not  able  to  earn  an  adequate 
reward,  but  capital  itself  was  suffering,  and  his  own  prof- 
its were  greatly  reduced  by  the  universal  depression  in 
the  cocoanut  business. 

"Strange  to  say  these  clear  and  convincing  arguments 


KING    MAMMON.  337 

produced  no  effect  on  the  discontented  climbers,  and 
they  immediately  struck.  They  slid  down  from  the 
cocoanut  trees  and  held  an  indignation  meeting.  The 
older  men  were  in  favor  of  disturbing  nothing  that  was 
owned  by  Elam,  but  the  young  radicals  declared  that  he 
was  a  greedy  monopolist  and  that  every  cocoanut  tree 
on  his  plantation  ought  to  be  cut  down.  A  compromise 
resulted  between  these  extreme  views,  and  the  strikers 
smeared  the  trunk  of  every  palm  that  bore  nuts  at  the 
top  with  a  thick  coat  of  pitch,  so  that  climbing  was 
temporarily  impossible,  and  stuck  on  it  a  notice  that  any 
disreputable  scab  who  attempted  to  climb  the  trees 
under  any  pretext  would  be  sunk,  like  McGinty,  to 
the  bottom  of  the  sea.  Elam  marched  his  anarchy 
brigade  upon  the  cocoanut  grounds,  but  the  laborers  were 
committing  no  overt  acts,  and  their  greatest  crime  was 
apparently  refusing  to  do  anything.  They  had  un- 
doubtedly exceeded  their  legal  rights  in  smearing  pitch 
on  his  trees,  and  the  captains  of  his  club-soldiers  wanted 
to  punish  them  severely  for  this  infraction  of  law  and 
order,  but  Elam  was  long-headed,  like  some  of  his 
capitalistic  descendants,  and  mentally  sizing  up  the 
numbers  of  those  who  had  organized  under  the  grip-and- 
password  system  of  human  effort,  he  decided  that  in  the 
excited  condition  of  public  sentiment,  violent  measures 
were  reactionary.  Therefore  his  soldiers  camped  and 
the  laborers  camped  under  the  cocoanut  trees  to  watch 
one  another  starve  to  death.  While  this  evolutionary 
process  embodying  the  survival  of  the  fittest  and  not  of 
the  rightist  was  going  on,  the  riff-raff  and  scum  of  the 
earth,  comprising  all  the  degenerate  descendants  of 
Noah,  who  perhaps  inherited  an  undue  proportion  of  the 
evil  instincts  which  among  their  ancestors  had  led  to  the 
flood,  seized  the  opportunity  afforded  by  the  preoccupied 
mental  condition  of  the  more  respectable  inhabitants  to 
do  a  little  business  on  their  own  account  and  after  their 
own  tastes. 

"  They  broke  into  Elam's  stores  of  cocoanuts  and  de- 
stroyed them  ;  they  drove  all  the  cattle  they  could  find 
belonging  to  either  the  strikers  or  their  employer  over  a 
high  cliff  into  the  sea  ;  they  knocked  the  top  off  of  Lud's 
monument ;  and,  finally,  they  held  a  great  meeting  and, 
22 


338  KING   MAMMON. 

marching  under  red  and  black  flags,  they  took  to  the 
woods,  leaving  the  interests  of  capital  and  labor  in 
Noahme  to  adjust  themselves  without  any  further  assist- 
ance on  their  part." 

The  remainder  of  this  sequel  to  the  interesting  legend 
of  the  flood,  if  any  more  of  it  was  ever  recorded,  has 
been  entirely  lost — probably  it  was  destroyed  in  the  dis- 
turbed condition  of  the  country  while  it  was  under  the 
alternate  domination  of  the  warring  factions.  At  any 
rate  we  have  now  no  means  of  ascertaining  what  final 
adjustment  was  made  between  the  supposed  interests  of 
the  man  who  inherited  the  earth  and  of  his  distant  rela- 
tives who  inherited  nothing.  Common  sense,  however, 
without  much  display  of  erudition,  ought  to  indicate 
to  any  person  living  in  the  nineteenth  century,  that  if 
the  descendants  of  Ham  and  Japheth  had  turned  their 
attention  more  toward  the  origin  of  ownership  in  the 
land  and  cocoanut  trees,  and  less  towards  the  mere  divi- 
sion of  the  cocoanuts,  they  would  have  more  readily 
reached  a  solution  of  the  problems  they  were  discussing. 
There  is  no  real  difference  between  the  principles  which 
established  Elam's  control  of  the  earth  and  those  which 
still  give  men  the  privilege  of  control  and  dictation.  If 
any  man  has  a  right  to  control  the  use  of  one  coat  pro- 
duced by  his  own  efforts,  it  is  very  difficult  to  determine 
why  he  should  not  control  one  thousand  coats  or  one 
million  coats  if  they  be  acquired  in  the  same  way.  There 
is  always  the  element  of  a  dangerous  power,  and  if  men 
now  lived  like  Methuselah  to  the  age  of  nine  hundred  and 
sixty-nine  years,  we  might  have  to  check  their  efforts  in 
order  to  prevent  the  despotic  domination  of  the  Fairs,  the 
Goulds,  and  the  Huntingtons,  and  thus  avoid  placing  the 
whole  earth  under  their  control ;  but  nature  having  limited 
their  existence  to  a  briefer  period,  that  period  furnishes  a 
convenient  method  of  avoiding  those  extremes  which  in 


KING   MAMMON.  339 

all  things  become  evils.  Benevolence  is  in  moderation 
a  blessing,  but  immoderately  exercised  it  becomes  a 
curse.  Wealth  accumulation  and  transfer  within  reason- 
able and  just  limits  are  beneficial  to  society  ;  but  carried 
to  the  insane  degree  of  our  present  institutions  and  pushed 
still  farther,  they  will  convert  human  beings  into  mad- 
dened brutes. 

The  inhabitants  of  Noahme  ought  to  have  objected 
more  strenuously  to  the  disposition  of  Noah's  estate,  and 
they  should  have  contested  the  wills  of  Shem  and  Lud, 
thus  preventing  the  establishment  of  Elam's  iron-clad 
monopoly  over  possessions  that  he  evidently  had  no  better 
right  to  control  than  other  men  had.  They  ought  to  have 
taken  a  sensible  view  of  social  conditions  instead  of  call- 
ing Mrs.  Ham  an  anarchist  and  then  quarreling  among 
themselves  over  the  questions  of  employment  and  wages. 
One  of  Mrs.  Ham's  distant  relatives  of  the  present  cen- 
tury has  been  heard  to  remark,  with  the  vixenish  accents 
of  contempt  which  characterized  her  ill-tempered  ancestor, 
that  the  laborers  might  as  well  try  to  exhaust  the  waters 
of  the  ocean  with  a  rye-straw  as  to  attempt  to  cure  the 
ills  and  right  the  wrongs  of  society  by  means  of  strikes. 
She  thinks  that  looking  at  the  mere  rate  of  wages  alone 
is  a  very  narrow,  selfish,  and  inadequate  conception  of 
the  social  problem,  not  at  all  more  intelligent  than  the 
ancient  position  of  the  cocoanut  strikers.  Mrs.  Ham's 
descendant  also  says  that  the  laborers  ought  to  have  long 
ears  attached  to  them  because  they  are  perpetually  fight- 
ing one  of  the  effects  of  a  bad  system  instead  of  the  real 
causes.  She  compares  their  efforts  to  an  attempt  to 
move  a  loaded  wheelbarrow  by  lifting  at  the  wrong  end, 
and  insists  that  if  they  will  grasp  the  handles,  it  will  be- 
come easily  manageable. 

These  assertions  are  repeated  here  for  what  they  may 
be  worth,  without  positive  approval,  for  the  lady,  though 


340  KING   MAMMON. 

frequently  correct  in  her  ideas,  is  somewhat  hasty  in  her 
conclusions.  It  would  seem,  however,  that  if  the  labor- 
ing classes  will  repress  and  discourage  lawlessness  in 
their  own  ranks,  and  strive  by  careful  study  to  obtain 
an  intelligent  comprehension,  sadly  lacking  among  all 
classes,  of  the  real  evils  and  dangers  by  which  they  are 
surrounded,  to  the  end  that  those  evils  shall  be  corrected 
peaceably  by  the  ballot  and  not  aggravated  by  a  blind 
and  ignorant  appeal  to  brute  force,  their  prospects  for 
securing  real  justice  and  better  social  conditions  will  be 
vastly  greater  than  they  can  obtain  by  the  mere  contin- 
uance of  strikes  and  boycotts,  which  never  reach  the 
cause  of  the  evil,  and  which  can  never  result  in  perma- 
nent good.  If  laborers  can  win  in  their  struggle  by  strik- 
ing, they  can  win  more  easily  by  voting.  They  need  to 
substitute  for  the  family  contests  now  continually  going 
on  in  our  probate  courts  the  intelligent  control  of  estates 
by  the  whole  people. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  LINK  BETWEEN  TWO  GENERATIONS. 

Meek  young  men  grow  up  in  libraries •,  believing  it  their  duty  to  accept 
views  which  Cicero,  Locke,  Bacon,  have  given,  forgetful  that  Cicero,  Locke, 
Bacon,  were  only  young  men  in  libraries  when  they  wrote  these  books.  .  .  . 
/  had  better  never  see  a  book,  than  to  be  warped  by  its  attractions  clear  out 
of  my  own  orbit  and  made  a  satellite  instead  of  a  system.  .  .  .  The  one  thing 
in  the  world  of  value  is  the  active  sotil.  .  .  .  Man  thinking  must  not  be  sitb- 
diiedby  his  instruments. — R.  W.  EMERSON. 

THE  privileges  of  the  deathbed  have  been  the  source 
of  much  discussion  and  dispute  ever  since  enough  wealth 
was  developed  to  make  it  worth  while  for  men  to  quarrel 
over  its  possession  and  disposition.  The  proper  disposal 
of  wealth  in  the  possession  of  a  dying  man  involves  a 


KING   MAMMON.  341 

consideration  of  the  rights  to  property,  and  a  determina- 
tion of  the  real  nature  of  those  conflicting  claims  repre- 
sented by  the  decedent  on  the  one  hand  and  his  children 
or  other  relatives  on  the  other,  whom  society  usually  re- 
gards as  heirs. 

Thus,  in  this  country  and  in  England,  the  dying  man 
is  supposed  to  have  a  natural  right  as  well  as  a  legal  right 
to  dispose  absolutely  of  his  wealth  by  making  a  will  in 
favor  of  any  person  whom  he  desires  to  succeed  him  in 
the  possession  of  his  property.  Jurors  called  into  court 
to  try  a  probate  case  will  assert  one  after  another  that 
they  believe  that  this  is  the  correct  principle  to  govern 
such  cases.  Practically,  however,  in  numberless  will- 
contests,  the  same  jurors  are  giving  the  lie  to  their  own 
assertions  by  verdicts  based  on  the  absurd  doctrine  or  pre- 
tense of  insanity  and  undue  influence.  If  the  verdicts  of 
juries  in  the  United  States  in  the  last  ten  years  be  any 
criterion,  the  intelligent  observer  must  conclude  that  nearly 
every  man  who  has  died  possessed  of  a  fortune  during 
that  period  was  either  a  lunatic  or  an  imbecile.  The  least 
eccentricity  or  apparent  injustice  in  the  disposition  of  an 
estate  among  the  surviving  family  members,  is  now  the 
excuse  for  a  will-contest,  in  which  juries  habitually  over- 
rule the  dead  man's  decree  in  a  way  that  plainly  shows 
the  drift  of  public  sentiment,  and  indicates  that  the  absolute 
power  of  bequest  is  becoming  a  legal  fiction  that  will 
be  abandoned  before  many  years.  At  present  juries  are 
constantly  destroying  the  power  of  wills  under  the  pretense 
that  the  testator  was  insane  or  unduly  influenced,  notwith- 
standing the  unsentimental  facts  of  such  cases  usually 
are  that  the  decedent  was  a  hard-headed  business  man, 
shrewd  and  capable,  who  had  proved  his  ability  and  san- 
ity in  the  successful  management  of  his  property,  and 
who  merely  proved  his  selfishness  and  tyranny  in  the 
final  disposal  of  it !  The  juries  are  really  striking  at  the 


342  KING   MAMMON. 

tyranny  involved  in  these  deathbed  decrees  and  not  at 
any  insanity  or  incompetency  of  the  testator,  and,  as  all 
history  proves,  they  are  men  who  in  sentiment  are  slightly 
in  advance  of  their  laws. 

The  great  Fair  will  contest  now  in  progress  at  San  Fran- 
cisco is  a  fine  illustration  of  the  absurd  condition  of  our 
testamentary  laws  and  of  the  changing  public  sentiment. 
James  G.  Fair,  an  ex-Senator  of  the  United  States  from 
Nevada,  died  in  San  Francisco  suddenly  on  December  28, 
1894.  His  estate  is  supposed  to  be  worth  about  thirty- 
eight  millions  of  dollars.  His  family  comprised  a  son 
and  two  daughters,  his  wife  being  dead.  The  deceased 
also  had  several  collateral  relatives.  On  the  day  after 
Mr.  Fair's  death,  a  will  was  filed  for  probate,  which  was 
drawn  with  extreme  care,  and  which  transformed  the  vast 
estate  into  a  trust  in  the  hands  of  four  executors,  who  were 
to  control  the  property  in  the  interests  of  the  three  chil- 
dren, all  of  whom  were  adults,  the  latter  not  being  given 
any  direct  control  over  the  estate.  The  will  essentially 
entailed  the  Fair  estate  upon  his  children,  and  thereafter 
upon  the  descendants  of  his  daughters,  as  far  as  entail  is 
now  permitted  by  our  laws,  the  children  of  his  son  being 
cut  off  from  the  succession  owing  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
married  an  actress  displeasing  to  the  parent.  The  trus- 
tees of  the  property  were  to  be  paid  by  fees  and  legacies, 
and  there  were  a  number  of  bequests,  principally  to  col- 
lateral relatives,  ranging  from  $3,000  to  $50,000  each,  two 
or  three  charitable  institutions  also  receiving  legacies. 
This  will  was  dated  on  September  21,  1894,  and  it  closed 
with  the  following  section  : 

"Twenty-second — Believing  that  I  have  made  a  just 
and  equitable  disposition  of  my  estate,  considering  all  the 
circumstances  surrounding  each  and  every  of  the  bene- 
ficiaries named  therein,  I  now  expressly  declare  and  pro- 
vide that,  if  any  one  or  more  of  the  legatees  or  devisees 


KING   MAMMON.  343 

in  this  will  named  or  provided  for,  shall  at  any  time  com- 
mence any  proceeding  to  contest  this  will,  the  legacy, 
devise  and  provision  therein  bequeathed,  devised  and  pro- 
vided for  shall  from  that  time  become  void,  and  I  hereby 
revoke  the  same ;  and  neither  the  court  having  jurisdic- 
tion of  my  estate,  nor  my  said  executors  and  trustees, 
shall  have  any  authority  to  distribute,  pay  or  deliver  to 
such  legatee  or  devisee  any  portion  of  the  legacy  or  devise 
to  which  he  or  they  would  otherwise  be  entitled  under  the 
provisions  hereof,  and  the  legacy,  devise  or  provision  so 
annulled  shall  thereupon  and  on  the  commencement  of 
such  proceeding  to  contest,  fall  into  and  become  a  part  of 
the  rest  and  residue  of  my  estate  to  the  same  extent  as  if 
the  said  legacy,  devise  and  provision  had  been  omitted 
from  this  will. "  x 

A  few  days  after  this  will  was  filed,  it  was  stolen  by  un- 
known persons  from  the  County  Clerk's  office, and  secreted 
or  destroyed,  only  copies  remaining.  Not  long  after  this, 
another  will,  or  what  purported  to  be  such,  was  discovered 
and  filed  as  a  later  testament,  said  to  have  been  written 
by  Mr.  Fair  himself  three  days  after  the  execution  of  the 
first  will.  The  second  will  was  a  brief  document  written 
with  a  pencil  on  legal  cap,  and  it  was  brought  into  court 
framed  between  sheets  of  glass  to  prevent  obliteration  by 
excessive  handling.  This  will  left  the  bequests  to  col- 
laterals and  charitable  beneficiaries  in  nearly  the  same 
condition  established  by  the  first  will,  but  appointed  dif- 

1  In  sharp  contrast  with  the  principles  of  entail  embodied  in  the  Fair 
will,  is  the  testament  left  in  Oakland,  March  16, 1895,137  Alfred  Barstow, 
a  lawyer  with  a  philosophic  turn  of  mind.  He  left  a  biographic  will  ap- 
pointing his  wife  executrix  and  desiring  that  his  estate  be  distributed  in 
accordance  with  the  laws  of  the  State  of  California.  He  refrained  from 
binding  his  successors  in  any  way  and  added  the  following  explanatory 

codicil  to  the  testament  : 

.  LfLj  tf,\^~J~A* 

I  think  no  man  should  have  the  power  to  go  further  than  this. 

I  do  not  believe  the  dead  should  meddle  with  the  quick. 

When  a  person  is  once  comfortably  dead  and  laid  to  rest,  let  him 
cease  from  troubling,  and  let  the  living  carry  on  the  business  of  life. 

Very  probably  the  dead  one  will  have  all  he  can  attend  to  if  the  re- 
ligious doctors  are  half  right  as  to  the  "  truths  "  which  they  hand  out 


344  KING   MAMMON. 

ferent  executors  and  abolished  the  trust,  permitting  the 
property  to  go  directly  to  the  three  children  in  equal  shares, 
and  providing  for  an  immediate  payment  of  $500,000  to 
the  son  as  a  portion  of  his  share  pending  a  settlement  of 
the  estate. 

All  three  of  the  children  opposed  the  first  will  in  senti- 
ment, though  not  in  legal  action,  evidently  desiring  direct 
control  of  the  vast  property,  or  fearing  that  the  trustees 
might  absorb  its  revenues  to  the  financial  detriment  of 
the  heirs.  The  newspapers  reported  that  propositions 
were  made  to  the  executors  to  withdraw  the  first  will  on 
payment  of  large  sums  to  them  by  the  heirs,  and  it  was 
stated  that  all  but  one  of  these  men  were  willing  to  do  so 
under  such  conditions.  No  compromise  of  this  kind  was 
effected,  however,  so  a  contest  was  commenced  by  the 
son,  Charles  L.  Fair,  presumably  with  the  approval  of  his 
sisters,  who  were  supposed  to  have  agreed  to  assist  him 
financially  from  their  income  in  case  he  failed  to  defeat 
the  first  will  of  their  father  by  the  second  document,  al- 
though the  forfeiture  clause  in  the  first  will  was  an  obsta- 
cle to  their  open  efforts  against  it. 

The  one  aspiration  of  James  G.  Fair's  life  was  the  con- 
trol of  wealth,  and  the  first  will  was,  evidently,  in  all  its 
minute  details  in  exact  accordance  with  the  well-known 
characteristics  and  feelings  of  the  man  who  executed  it, 
and  who  thus  artificially  projected  his  own  existence  into 
the  future,  as  though  his  bony  fingers  were  reaching  out 
from  the  sepulcher,  still  to  direct  the  disposition  of  that 
wealth  which  was  to  him  next  to  his  own  life.  Parental 
affection,  pure  and  true,  may  also  have  entered  into  the 
formation  of  this  will,  for  his  children  did  not  inherit  his 
own  care  and  skill  in  the  management  of  property,  and 
his  son  was  popularly  esteemed  a  "ne'er-do-well"  whose 
chief  object  in  life  was  to  spend  his  father's  surplus  cash. 
It  is  likely  that  in  making  this  will,  James  G.  Fair  was 


KING   MAMMON.  345 

actuated  by  two  motives  :  the  desire  of  continuing  his 
estate  in  an  unbroken  body,  invariably  the  passion  of  the 
great  accumulator ;  and  the  desire  to  make  his  children 
comfortable  and  independent  for  life,  without  ruining  them 
by  the  unrestricted  possession  of  great  wealth,  which  he 
knew  they  were  not  competent  to  handle,  and  which  he 
preferred  to  entrust  to  his  business  friends  as  executors. 
The  children  were  undoubtedly  actuated  in  the  contest  by 
the  desire  of  complete  control  over  the  property  and  by 
distrust  of  the  men  appointed  to  manage  it.  Hence  the 
whole  estate  is  involved  in  litigation,  between  twenty  and 
thirty  lawyers  being  employed,  and  tremendous  efforts 
will  be  made  to  prove  that  a  man  who  accumulated  nearly 
forty  millions  of  dollars,  and  who  was  successfully  manag- 
ing it  at  the  time  of  his  death,  was  a  half-imbecile  who 
made  long  wills  on  one  day  because  his  friends  desired 
him  to  do  so,  only  to  change  them  as  the  whim  occurred 
to  him,  or  at  the  solicitation  of  some  other  person. 

It  matters  not  to  the  public  whether  the  executors  in  this 
case  retain  control  of  the  estate,  whether  the  heirs  obtain 
the  unrestrained  privilege  of  handling  it,  or  whether  the 
score  of  lawyers  employed  succeed  in  absorbing  it.  It  is 
probable  that  the  result  of  the  trial  will  distribute  the  Fair 
estate  about  equally  in  these  three  directions.  The  real 
question  for  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  determine 
is  what  moral  or  equitable  right  these  people  have  to  the 
estate  of  James  G.  Fair  beyond  the  right  that  accrues  to 
every  other  citizen  of  the  country.  The  children  were 
supported  in  idleness  and  luxury  by  Mr.  Fair  during  his 
lifetime,  and  the  son  constantly  indulged  in  luxurious  liv- 
ing to  the  vexation  of  his  father,  who  manifested  his  dis- 
pleasure in  the  making  of  the  first  will.  The  executors 
were  business  friends  of  the  deceased,  who  had  reaped 
profit  from  association  with  the  capitalist,  and  to  whom 
no  special  assistance  was  apparently  due.  The  lawyers 


346  KING   MAMMON. 

employed  in  the  case  are  simply  a  band  of  legalized  plun- 
derers, who  live  at  the  expense  of  society  while  prosecut- 
ing various  sides  of  the  great  contest,  and  who  fight  over 
the  spoils  with  a  personal  merit  not  greater  than  a  dozen 
wharf-rats  would  display  if  society  kindly  permitted  a  sack- 
ful of  wheat  to  be  scattered  for  their  benefit.  Their  posi- 
tion in  the  Fair  will  case  is  the  prostitution  of  great  intel- 
lect to  outrageous  social  wrong. 

Does  society  propose  to  continue  a  system  under  which 
the  control  of  fortunes  worth  from  twenty  to  two  hundred 
millions  of  dollars  when  the  accumulator  has  abandoned 
earth,  is  made  to  depend  upon  the  authenticity  of  a  scrap 
of  paper?  Are  men  like  Fair  to  name  their  own  succes- 
sors in  the  control  of  such  wealth,  are  their  wishes  to  be 
disregarded  by  juries  when  they  are  obviously  unjust,  or 
are  the  people  themselves  to  determine  what  disposal  shall 
be  made  of  the  wealth,  disregarding  the  pretensions  of 
both  ancestor  and  heir,  and  doing  equal  justice  among  all  ? 
It  should  be  conceivable  to  the  minds  of  the  present  gen- 
eration in  this  country  that  the  proper  disposition  of  estates 
should  be  absolutely  in  the  hands  of  judges  representing 
the  people  under  equitable  laws,  and  not  a  contest  between 
the  desires  of  parent  and  child.  A  very  large  portion  of 
every  estate  like  that  of  James  G.  Fair  should  go  to  the 
United  States  government,  for  there  is  really  no  man  in 
any  part  of  the  nation  who  does  not  contribute  directly  or 
indirectly  to  its  accumulation.  The  remainder  should  be 
distributed  among  individual  successors  in  the  most  equit- 
able manner  possible,  and  without  giving  to  any  heir  or 
legatee  the  excuse  for  riotous  living  and  luxurious  worth- 
lessness  as  the  concomitant  of  vast  wealth  unearned  and 
consequently  undeserved. 

Having  used  this  famous  case  as  the  type  of  existing 
conditions,  we  will  now  proceed  to  review  some  of  the 
theories  relating  to  successions.  It  is  clear  that  if  the 


KING   MAMMON.  347 

father  has  the  moral  right  to  bequeath,  the  children  have 
no  moral  right  to  succeed,  for  these  are  conflicting  claims, 
and  one  or  the  other  must  give  way.  In  England  and 
America  the  parent  holds  the  power ;  in  France  and  some 
other  European  countries  the  power  of  the  children  is 
superior,  and  the  making  of  a  will  is  a  comparatively 
barren  privilege.  It  is  the  effort  of  this  book  to  prove 
that  the  right  of  the  people  is  supreme  over  both,  and  that 
it  is  now  time  to  exercise  that  right,  however  unnecessary 
its  enforcement  may  have  been  in  the  past.  Granting  the 
natural  claims  of  helpless  infancy,  all  men  associated 
under  one  government  are  otherwise  equal  heirs  to 
whatever  none  of  them  has  directly  produced  or  acquired, 
for  they  are  again  in  the  condition  of  two  or  more  men 
who  seek  the  natural  products  of  game,  fish,  or  fruits,  in 
which  none  has  developed  a  special  right  by  labor. 

In  this  chapter  will  be  presented  some  of  the  ideas  that 
have  emanated  from  the  minds  of  a  few  great  thinkers, 
not  because  their  thoughts  confirm  or  add  the  weight  of 
indorsement  to  the  views  expressed  in  this  treatise,  but 
because  they  are  interesting  in  throwing  light  upon  the 
vexed  subject  of  successions,  which  have  existed  in  va- 
rious forms  under  different  conditions  of  civilization,  as 
we  have  seen  in  a  preceding  chapter,  and  which  have 
been  the  subject  of  almost  every  conceivable  form  of 
legislation. 

Veneration  for  a  great  name  is  a  trait  in  human  nature 
so  widely  prevalent  and  so  powerful  in  its  influence,  that 
any  quotation  of  Herbert  Spencer's  language  on  the  rights 
of  bequest  may  not  tend  to  strengthen  the  position  herein 
occupied,  for  Mr.  Spencer  is  one  of  those  writers  who  ap- 
parently see  nothing  wrong  or  dangerous  in  the  power  of 
making  a  will.  Greatness,  however,  does  not  constitute 
infallibility.  Plato  possessed  one  of  the  greatest  intellects 
the  world  has  produced,  yet  his  thoughts  could  not  rise 


348  KING   MAMMON. 

above  the  possession  of  women  as  property.  Sir  Thomas 
More  foresaw  many  of  the  improvements  of  modern  civili- 
zation when  he  wrote  of  Utopia,  yet  he  could  not  foresee 
the  extinction  of  slavery.  The  moral  progress  of  man- 
kind is  absolute  darkness  to  all  but  a  few  seers  who  are 
usually  execrated  by  their  contemporaries  as  Jesus  Christ 
was  crucified.  Great  minds  as  well  as  small  ones  are 
confined  to  groveling1  sentiments,  though  not  in  the 
same  degree,  by  the  opinions  of  their  associates  and  by 
the  habits  and  customs  and  beliefs  of  the  age  in  which 
they  exist,  and  ideas  impressed  upon  any  mind  by  con- 
stant association  from  its  infancy  cannot  be  easily 
effaced  by  any  process  of  reasoning.  Sometimes  men 
evolve  a  new  belief  by  reasoning,  but  more  often  they 
merely  twist  their  methods  of  reasoning  into  a  form  to 
substantiate  beliefs  formed  among  the  early  impressions 
of  childhood.  Mr.  Spencer  is  entitled  to  respect  as  a 
great  thinker,  but  not  to  such  veneration  as  would  pre- 
clude an  examination  of  his  ideas  from  a  skeptical  view. 
In  his  recent  ethical  work  entitled  Justice,  he  bases  the 
right  of  property  upon  human  labor,  as  he  did  many  years 
previously  in  Social  Statics.  In  the  new  book,  however, 
his  assertions  concerning  the  right  of  property  are  vague, 
doubtful,  and  hesitating,  lacking  entirely  the  positive  and 
vigorous  tone  of  the  thoughts  enunciated  in  his  earlier 
work,  and  indicating  that  the  author  is  either  confused  by 
the  difficulties  that  surround  the  subject  of  human  rights, 
or  unwilling  to  positively  assert  conclusions  that  wrould 
be  inimical  to  property  interests,  and  that  would  inevi- 
tably provoke  the  hostility  of  antagonistic  human  nature. 

He  reasserts  in  Justice  the  burden  of  his  thoughts  on  the 
land  question  embraced  in  Social  Statics,  by  saying  : 

"The  earth's  surface  cannot  be  denied  to  any  one  ab- 
solutely,   without  rendering  life-sustaining  activities  im- 


KING   MAMMON.  349 

practicable.  In  the  absence  of  standing-ground  he  can  do 
nothing ;  and  hence  it  appears  to  be  a  corollary  from  the 
law  of  equal  freedom,  interpreted  with  strictness,  that  the 
earth's  surface  may  not  be  appropriated  by  individuals, 
but  may  be  occupied  by  them  only  in  such  manner  as 
recognizes  ultimate  ownership  by  other  men,  that  is — 

by  society    at    large But    the    proposition     that 

men  have  equal  claims  to  the  use  of  that  remaining  por- 
tion of  the  environment — hardly  to  be  called  a  medium — 
on  which  all  stand  and  by  the  products  of  which  all  live, 
is  antagonized  by  ideas  and  arrangements  descending  to 
us  from  the  past  These  ideas  and  arrangements  arose 
when  considerations  of  equity  did  not  affect  land  tenure 
any  more  than  they  affected  the  tenure  of  men  as  slaves 
or  serfs  ;  and  they  now  make  acceptance  of  the  proposition 
difficult  If,  while  possessing  those  ethical  sentiments 
which  social  discipline  has  now  produced,  men  stood  in 
possession  of  a  territory  not  yet  individually  portioned  out, 
they  would  no  more  hesitate  to  assert  equality  of  their 
claims  to  the  land  than  they  would  hesitate  to  assert 
equality  of  their  claims  to  light  and  air.  But  now  that 
long-standing  appropriation,  continued  culture,  as  well  as 
sales  and  purchases,  have  complicated  matters,  the  dictum 
of  absolute  ethics,  incongruous  with  the  state  of  things 
produced,  is  apt  to  be  denied  altogether." 

In  Justice  Mr.  Spencer  apparently  avoids  the  land 
question,  and  he  also  avoids  a  frank  and  fearless  dis- 
cussion of  the  rights  to  property.  In  a  roundabout,  hesi- 
tating way  he  intimates  that  men  cannot  justly  appropriate 
the  surface  of  the  earth  under  private  ownership,  but  he 
sees  no  way  of  rectifying  that  injustice  except  by  compen- 
sating the  appropriators  for  what  he  must  certainly  think 
they  ought  not  to  possess.  He  does  not  say  what  real 
difference  he  can  discover  between  a  small  portion  of  the 
earth's  surface  lying  in  a  horizontal  section  for  use  as  a 
garden,  and  the  same  portion  of  the  earth  made  into 
bricks  and  used  as  a  wall  to  fence  it,  or  to  construct  the 
owner's  house  when  elevated  into  a  vertical  section.  He 


350  KING   MAMMON. 

does  not  inquire  how  a  man's  right  to  the  land  he  occupies 
differs  from  his  right  to  the  clothes  he  wears,  or  whether 
there  is  any  real  difference,  or  if  there  be  a  difference, 
how  long  his  right  to  either  possession  may  justly  con- 
tinue. It  is  evident  that  Mr.  Spencer  would  rather  dis- 
cuss the  rights  to  property  among  the  Chippeways  and 
Comanches  than  the  same  principles  among  Englishmen. 
Nevertheless,  he  does  in  one  place  present  the  glimmering 
of  the  truth  that  all  property  of  whatsoever  kind  is  alike 
in  its  real  nature,  and  that  there  is  no  real  difference  in 
the  nature  of  human  rights  to  land  and  to  other  portions 
of  the  earth,  for  he  subsequently  says  : 

•'Since  all  material  objects  capable  of  being  owned  are 
in  one  way  or  other  obtained  from  the  earth,  it  results 
that  the  right  of  property  is  originally  dependent  on  the 
right  to  the  use  of  the  earth.  While  there  were  yet  no 
artificial  products,  and  natural  products  were,  therefore, 
the  only  things  which  could  be  appropriated,  this  was  an 
obviously  necessary  connection.  And  though,  in  our  de- 
veloped form  of  society,  there  are  multitudinous  posses- 
sions, ranging  from  houses,  furniture,  clothes,  works  of 
art,  to  bank  notes,  railway  shares,  mortgages,  govern- 
ment bonds,  etc.,  the  origins  of  which  have  no  manifest 
relation  to  the  use  of  the  earth  ;  yet  it  needs  but  to  re- 
member that  they  either  are,  or  represent,  products  of 
labor,  that  labor  is  made  possible  by  food,  and  that  food 
is  obtained  from  the  soil,  to  see  that  the  connection, 
though  remote  and  entangled,  still  continues.  Whence  it 
follows  that  a  complete  ethical  justification  for  the  right 
of  property  is  involved  in  the  same  difficulties  as  the 
ethical  justification  for  the  right  to  the  use  of  the  earth." 

When  he  wrote  Social  Statics  Mr.  Spencer  believed 
that  land  was  so  different  in  its  nature  from  other  forms 
of  property,  that  it  could  not  be  justly  held  under  private 
ownership.  In  the  preceding  paragraph  from  Justice  he 
evidently  perceives  that  the  rights  to  all  kinds  of  property 
may  be  attacked  with  the  same  facility  as  the  rights  to 


KING   MAMMON.  351 

land,  but  he  evades  the  discussion  and  avoids  pushing  the 
investigation  of  property  rights  to  the  only  logical  result 
of  a  denial  of  perpetuity  embodied  in  successions.  In 
Justice  his  chapters  on  the  rights  to  property  are  a  weak, 
evasive,  and  half-hearted  apology  for  the  supposed  rights 
Of  property,  entirely  unworthy  of  his  pen,  for  Mr.  Spencer 
is  too  clear  and  deep  a  thinker  to  fail  in  tracing  out  more 
equitable  relations  of  men  to  wealth  than  now  exist  if  he 
really  desired  to  do  so,  and  to  make  his  thoughts  public. 
In  Social  Statics  the  vigor  of  his  assertions  is  in  marked 
contrast  with  the  uncertainty  of  his  later  work. 

Passing  on  from  the  rights  to  property  to  the  rights  of 
gifts  and  bequest,  the  author  of  Justice  writes  : 

"  Complete  ownership  of  anything  implies  power  to 
make  over  the  ownership  to  another  ;  since  a  partial  or 
entire  interdict  implies  partial  or  entire  ownership  by  the 
authority  issuing  the  interdict,  and  therefore  limits  or 
overrides  the  ownership.  Hence,  if  the  right  of  property 

is   admitted,  the   right  of  gift  is  admitted The 

right  of  gift  implies  the  right  of  bequest  ;  for  a  bequest 
is  a  postponed  gift.  If  a  man  may  legitimately  transfer 
what  he  possesses  to  another,  he  may  legitimately  fix  the 
time  at  which  it  shall  be  transferred.  When  he  does  this 
by  will,  he  partially  makes  the  transfer,  but  provides  that 
the  transfer  shall  take  effect  only  when  his  own  power  of 
possession  ceases.  And  his  right  to  make  a  gift  subject 
to  this  condition,  is  included  in  his  right  of  ownership  ; 

since,    otherwise,    his    ownership    is   incomplete 

But  while,  along  with  the  right  of  gift,  the  right  of  bequest 
is  implied  by  the  right  of  property, — while  a  man's  own- 
ership may  justly  be  held  to  include  the  right  of  leaving 
defined  portions  of  what  he  has  to  specified  recipients  ;  it 
does  not  follow  that  he  is  ethically  warranted  in  directing 
what  shall  be  done  by  the  recipients  with  the  property  he 
leaves  to  them.  Presented  in  its  naked  form,  the  propo- 
sition that  a  man  can  own  a  thing  when  he  is  dead  is 
absurd,  and  yet,  in  a  disguised  form,  ownership  after 
death  has  been  largely  in  past  times,  and  is  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  at  present,  recognized  and  enforced  by 


352  KING   MAMMON. 

the  carrying  out  of  a  testator's  orders  respecting  the  uses 
to  be  made  of  his  bequests.  For  any  prescribing  of  such 
uses,  implying  continuance  of  some  power  over  the 
property,  implies  continuance  of  some  possession,  and 
wholly  or  partially  takes  away  the  possession  from  those 
to  whom  the  property  is  bequeathed.  Few  will  deny  that 
the  earth's  surface,  and  the  things  on  it,  should  be  owned 
in  full  by  the  generation  at  any  time  existing.  Hence  the 
right  of  property  may  not  equitably  be  so  interpreted  as 
to  allow  any  generation  to  tell  subsequent  generations 
for  what  purposes,  or  under  what  restrictions,  they  are  to 

use   the    earth's    surface    or    the    things    on    it 

Strictly  interpreted,  therefore,  the  right  of  gift,  when  it 
takes  the  form  of  bequest,  extends  only  to  the  distribution 
of  the  bequeathed  property,  and  does  not  include  speci- 
fication of  the  uses  to  which  it  shall  be  put." 

Mr.  Spencer  evidently  thinks,  judging  him  by  the  tenor 
of  this  extract,  that  a  man  can  justly  bequeath  his  pos- 
sessions, but  that  he  cannot  rightfully  direct  the  use  of 
wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  new  possessor.  He  is  mani- 
festly not  certain,  however,  of  either  of  these  points,  for 
he  hesitates  between  the  two  opinions.  From  his  con- 
ception of  human  rights,  it  is  little  wonder  that  he  finds 
his  doctrines  of  succession  "  perplexing,"  as  he  acknowl- 
edges in  the  subjoined  extract  : 

"A  more  perplexing  question  here  arises.  Derived 
though  the  ultimate  law,  alike  of  sub-human  justice  and 
human  justice,  is  from  the  necessary  conditions  to  self- 
preservation  and  the  preservation  of  the  species  ;  and  de- 
rived from  this  as  are  both  the  right  of  possession  during  life 
and  that  right  of  qualified  possession  after  death  implied  by 
bequests  in  trust  for  immature  children  ;  a  kindred  deriva- 
tion of  any  further  right  to  prescribe  the  uses  of  bequeathed 
property  appears  impracticable.  Nothing  beyond  a  quite 
empirical  compromise  seems  possible.  On  the  one  hand, 
ownership  of  property  after  death  is  unwarranted  by  the 
ultimate  principle  of  justice,  save  in  the  case  named.  On 
the  other  hand,  when  property  has  been  acquired,  per- 
haps by  unusual  industry,  perhaps  by  great  skill  in 


KING   MAMMON.  353 

business  (implying  benefit  to  others  as  well  as  to  self),  or 
perhaps  by  an  invention  permanently  valuable  to  man- 
kind, it  is  hard  that  the  owner  should  be  wholly  deprived 
of  power  to  direct  the  uses  to  be  made  of  it  after  his  death  ; 
especially  where  he  has  no  children  and  must  leave  it 
unbequeathed  or  bequeath  it  to  strangers." 

Then,  immediately  afterward,  in  still  greater  doubt, 
Mr.  Spencer  goes  back  to  his  first  idea  of  Social  Statics, 
and  clings  to  the  notion  that  the  rights  to  land  are 
essentially  different  in  their  nature  from  the  rights  to  per- 
sonal property,  as  the  following  paragraph  will  indicate : 

' '  Evidently  a  distinction  is  to  be  made.  One  who  holds 
land  subject  to  that  supreme  ownership  of  the  community, 
which  both  ethics  and  law  asserts,  cannot  rightly  have 
such  power  of  willing  the  application  of  it  as  involves 
permanent  alienation  from  the  community.  In  respect 
of  what  is  classed  as  personalty,  however,  the  case  is 
different.  Property  which  is  the  product  of  efforts,  and 
which  has  resulted  either  from  the  expenditure  of  such 
efforts  upon  raw  materials  for  which  equivalents  (repre- 
senting so  much  labor)  have  been  given,  or  from  the 
savings  out  of  wages  or  salaries,  and  is  thus  possessed 
in  virtue  of  that  relation  between  actions  and  their  con- 
sequences, on  the  maintenance  of  which  justice  insists, 
stands  in  another  category.  Such  property  being  a  por- 
tion of  that  which  society  has  paid  the  individual  for 
work  done,  but  which  he  has  not  consumed,  he  may  rea- 
sonably contend  that  in  giving  it  back  to  society,  either 
as  represented  by  certain  of  its  members  or  by  some  in- 
corporated body,  he  should  be  allowed  to  specify  the 
conditions  under  which  the  bequest  is  to  be  accepted. 
In  this  case  it  cannot  be  said  that  anything  is  alienated 
which  belongs  to  others.  Contrariwise,  others  receive 
that  to  which  they  have  no  claim  ;  and  are  benefited, 
even  when  they  use  it  for  prescribed  purposes  :  refusal  of 
it  being  the  alternative  if  the  purposes  are  not  regarded 
as  beneficial.  Still,  as  bequeathed  personal  property  is 
habitually  invested,  power  to  prescribe  its  uses  without 
any  limit  of  time  may  result  in  its  being  permanently 
23 


354  KING   MAMMON. 

turned  to  ends  which,  good  though  they  were  when  it 
was  bequeathed,  have  been  rendered  otherwise  by  social 
changes.  Hence  an  empirical  compromise  appears 
needful.  We  seem  called  upon  to  say  that  a  testator 
should  have  some  power  of  directing  the  application  of 
property  not  bequeathed  to  children,  but  that  his  power 
should  be  limited  ;  and  that  the  limits  must  be  settled  by 
experience  of  results. " 

Reserving  all  comment  on  these  views  for  the  present, 
we  will  examine  John  Stuart  Mill's  writings  on  the  same 
subjects.  Mr.  Mill,  as  we  have  shown  in  a  preceding 
chapter,  was  like  the  Mr.  Spencer  of  Social  Statics,  a  firm 
believer  in  the  doctrine  that  land  ought  not  to  be  sub- 
jected to  private  ownership.  His  conception  of  the  right 
of  property  is  expressed  in  the  following  extract  with  a 
clearness  and  positive  assertion  that  is  delightfully  in  con- 
trast with  the  timid  utterances  of  Mr.  Spencer  on  the 
same  subject  in  his  recent  work  : 

"The  institution  of  property,  when  limited  to  its  essen- 
tial elements,  consists  in  the  recognition,  in  each  person, 
of  a  right  to  the  exclusive  disposal  of  what  he  or  she  have 
produced  by  their  own  exertions,  or  received  either  by 
gift  or  by  fair  agreement,  without  force  or  fraud,  from 
those  who  produced  it.  The  foundation  of  the  whole  is 
the  right  of  producers  to  what  they  themselves  have  pro- 
duced. To  me  it  seems  almost  an  axiom  that  property  in 
land  should  be  interpreted  strictly,  and  that  the  balance  in 
all  cases  of  doubt  should  incline  against  the  proprietor. 
The  reverse  is  the  case  with  property  in  movables,  and 
in  all  things  the  product  of  labor  :  over  these,  the  owner's 
power  both  of  use  and  exclusion  should  be  absolute  ex- 
cept where  positive  evil  to  others  would  result  from  it ; 
but  in  the  case  of  land,  no  exclusive  right  should  be  per- 
mitted in  any  individual  which  cannot  be  shown  to  be 
productive  of  positive  good.  To  be  allowed  any  exclu- 
sive right  at  all  over  a  portion  of  the  common  inheritance, 
while  there  are  others  who  have  no  portion,  is  already  a 
privilege.  No  quantity  of  movable  goods  which  a  person 


KING    MAMMON.  355 

can  acquire  by  his  labor,  prevents  others  from  acquiring" 
the  like  by  the  same  means  ;  but  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  whoever  owns  land,  keeps  others  out  of  the  en- 
joyment of  it.  The  privilege,  or  monopoly,  is  only  de- 
fensible as  a  necessary  evil  ;  it  becomes  an  injustice 
when  carried  to  any  point  to  which  the  compensating 
good  does  not  follow  it." 

Commenting  on  the  privileges  of  inheritance  and  be- 
quest, this  author  is  equally  decisive  and  explicit  in  the 
following  paragraphs  : 

1 '  If  it  be  said,  as  it  may  with  truth,  that  those  who  have 
inherited  the  savings  of  others  have  an  advantage  which 
they  have  in  no  way  deserved,  over  the  industrious  whose 
predecessors  have  not  left  them  anything ;  I  not  only  ad- 
mit but  strenuously  contend,  that  this  unearned  advan- 
tage should  be  curtailed  as  much  as  is  consistent  with 
justice  to  those  who  thought  fit  to  dispose  of  their  savings 
by  giving  them  to  their  descendants.  But  while  it  is  true 
that  the  laborers  are  at  a  disadvantage  compared  with 
those  whose  predecessors  have  saved,  it  is  also  true  that 
the  laborers  are  far  better  off  than  if  those  predecessors 
had  not  saved.  They  share  in  the  advantage,  though 
not  to  an  equal  extent  with  the  inheritors.  .  .  .  Nothing 
is  implied  in  property  but  the  right  of  each  to  his  (or  her) 
own  faculties,  to  what  he  can  produce  by  them,  and  to 
whatever  he  can  get  for  them  in  a  fair  market ;  together 
with  his  right  to  give  this  to  any  other  person,  if  he 
chooses,  and  the  right  of  that  other  to  receive  and  enjoy 
it. 

"  It  follows  therefore,  that  though  the  right  of  bequest, 
or  gift  after  death,  forms  part  of  the  idea  of  private  prop- 
erty, the  right  of  inheritance,  as  distinguished  from  be- 
quest, does  not.  That  the  property  of  persons  who  have 
made  no  disposition  of  it  during  their  lifetime,  should 
pass  first  to  their  children,  and  failing  them,  to  the  nearest 
relations,  may  be  a  proper  arrangement  or  not,  but  it  is 
no  consequence  of  the  principle  of  private  property.  .  .  . 
No  presumption  in  favor  of  existing  ideas  on  this  subject 
is  to  be  derived  from  their  antiquity.  In  early  ages,  the 
property  of  a  deceased  person  passed  to  his  children  and 


KING   MAMMON. 

nearest  relatives  by  so  natural  and  obvious  an  arrange- 
ment, that  no  other  was  likely  to  be  even  thought  of  in 
competition  with  it.  ...  Exclusive  individual  property 
in  the  modern  sense  scarcely  entered  into  the  ideas  of  the 
time ;  and  when  the  first  magistrate  of  the  (family)  asso- 
ciation died,  he  really  left  nothing  vacant  but  his  own 
share  in  the  division,  which  devolved  on  the  members 
of  the  family  who  succeeded  to  his  authority.  To  have 
disposed  of  the  property  otherwise  would  have  been  to 
break  up  a  little  commonwealth,  united  by  ideas,  interest, 
and  habits,  and  to  cast  them  adrift  on  the  world.  These 
considerations,  though  rather  felt  than  reasoned  about,  had 
so  great  an  influence  on  the  minds  of  mankind,  as  to  create 
the  idea  of  an  inherent  right  in  the  children  to  the  posses- 
sions of  their  ancestor  ;  a  right  which  it  was  not  com- 
petent to  himself  to  defeat.  Bequest,  in  a  primitive  state 
of  society,  was  seldom  recognized  ;  a  clear  proof,  were 
there  no  other,  that  property  was  conceived  in  a  manner 
totally  different  from  the  conception  of  it  in  the  present 
time. 

"  But  the  feudal  family,  the  last  historical  form  of  patri- 
archal life,  has  long  perished,  and  the  unit  of  society  is 
not  now  the  family  or  clan,  composed  of  all  the  reputed 
descendants  of  a  common  ancestor,  but  the  individual ; 
or  at  most  a  pair  of  individuals,  with  their  unemancipated 
children.  Property  is  now  inherent  in  individuals,  not  in 
families  ;  the  children  when  grown  up  do  not  follow  the 
occupations  or  fortunes  of  the  parents  :  if  they  participate 
in  the  parents'  pecuniary  means,  it  is  at  his  or  her 
pleasure,  and  not  by  a  voice  in  the  ownership  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  whole,  but  generally  by  the  exclusive  en- 
joyment of  a  part :  and  in  this  country  [England]  at  least 
(except  as  far  as  entails  or  settlements  are  an  obstacle)  it 
is  in  the  power  of  parents  to  disinherit  even  their  children, 
and  leave  their  fortune  to  strangers.  More  distant  rela- 
tives are  in  general  almost  as  completely  detached  from 
the  family  and  its  interests  as  if  they  were  in  no  way 
connected  with  it.  ...  The  only  claim  they  are  supposed 
to  have  on  their  richer  relatives,  is  to  a  preference,  cceteris 
pan'bus,  in  good  offices,  and  some  aid  in  case  of  actual 
necessity. 

"So  great  a  change  in  the  constitution  of  society  must 


KING   MAMMON.  357 

make  a  considerable  difference  in  the  grounds  on  which 
the  disposal  of  property  by  inheritance  should  rest.  The 
reasons  usually  assigned  by  modern  writers  for  giving 
the  property  of  a  person  who  dies  intestate  to  the  children 
or  nearest  relatives,  are,  first,  the  supposition  that  in  so 
disposing  of  it,  the  law  is  more  likely  than  in  any  other 
mode  to  do  what  the  proprietor  would  have  done,  if  he 
had  done  anything ;  and,  secondly,  the  hardship  to  those 
who  lived  with  their  parents  and  partook  in  their  opu- 
lence, of  being  cast  down  from  the  enjoyments  of  wealth 
into  poverty  and  privation. 

"There  is  some  force  in  both  these  arguments.  The 
law  ought,  no  doubt,  to  do  for  the  children  or  depend- 
ents of  an  intestate,  whatever  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
parent  or  protector  to  have  done,  so  far  as  this  can 
be  known  by  any  one  besides  himself.  Since,  however, 
the  law  cannot  decide  on  individual  claims  but  must 
proceed  by  general  rules,  it  is  next  to  be  considered  what 
these  rules  should  be. 

"We  may  first  remark,  that  in  regard  to  collateral 
relatives,  it  is  not,  unless  on  grounds  personal  to  the 
particular  individual,  the  duty  of  any  one  to  make  a 
pecuniary  provision  for  them.  No  one  now  expects  it, 
unless  there  happen  to  be  no  direct  heirs  ;  nor  would 
it  be  expected,  even  then,  if  the  expectation  were  not 
created  by  the  provisions  of  the  law  in  cases  of  intestacy. 
I  see,  therefore,  no  reason  why  collateral  inheritance 
should  exist  at  all.  Mr.  Bentham  long  ago  proposed, 
and  other  high  authorities  have  agreed  in  the  opinion, 
that  if  there  are  no  heirs  either  in  the  descending  or 
ascending  line,  the  property  in  cases  of  intestacy  should 
escheat  to  the  State.  With  respect  to  the  more  remote 
degrees  of  collateral  relationship,  the  point  is  not  very 
likely  to  be  disputed.  Few  will  maintain  that  there  is 
any  good  reason  why  the  accumulations  of  some 
childless  miser  should  on  his  death  (as  every  now  and 
then  happens)  go  to  enrich  a  distant  relative  who 
never  saw  him,  who  perhaps  never  knew  himself  to 
be  related  to  him,  until  there  was  something  to  be 
gained  by  it,  and  who  had  no  moral  claim  upon  him  of 
any  kind,  more  than  the  most  entire  stranger.  But  the 
reason  of  the  case  applies  to  all  collaterals,  even  in  the 


358  KING   MAMMON. 

nearest  degree.  Collaterals  have  no  real  claims,  but  such 
as  maybe  equally  strong  in  the  case  of  non-relatives  ;  and 
in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  where  valid  claims 
exist,  the  proper  mode  of  paying  regard  to  them  is  by 
bequest. 

"The  claims  of  children  are  of  a  different  nature  ;  they 
are  real  and  indefeasible.  But  even  of  these  I  venture 
to  think  that  the  measure  usually  taken  is  an  erroneous 
one  ;  what  is  due  to  children  is  in  some  respects  under- 
rated, in  others,  as  it  appears  to  me,  exaggerated.  One 
of  the  most  binding  of  all  obligations,  that  of  not 
bringing  children  into  the  world  unless  they  can  be  main- 
tained in  comfort  during  childhood,  and  brought  up  with 
a  likelihood  of  supporting  themselves  when  of  full  age, 
is  both  disregarded  in  practice  and  made  light  of  in 
theory  in  a  manner  disgraceful  to  human  intelligence. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  the  parent  possesses  property, 
the  claims  of  the  children  upon  it  seem  to  me  to  be  the 
subject  of  an  opposite  error.  Whatever  fortune  a  parent 
may  have  inherited,  or  still  more  may  have  acquired,  I 
cannot  admit  he  owes  to  his  children,  merely  because 
they  are  his  children,  to  leave  them  rich,  without  the 
necessity  of  any  exertion.  I  could  not  admit  it,  even  if 
to  be  so  left  were  always,  and  certainly,  for  the  good 
of  the  children  themselves.  But  this  is  in  the  highest 
degree  uncertain.  It  depends  on  individual  character. 
Without  supposing  extreme  cases,  it  may  be  affirmed 
that  in  a  majority  of  instances  the  good  not  only  of 
society,  but  of  the  individuals,  would  be  better  consulted 
by  bequeathing  to  them  a  moderate,  than  a  large  pro- 
vision. This,  which  is  a  commonplace  of  moralists, 
ancient  and  modern,  is  felt  to  be  true  by  many  intelli- 
gent parents,  and  would  be  acted  upon  much  more  fre- 
quently, if  they  did  not  allow  themselves  to  consider 
less  what  really  is,  than  what  will  be  thought  by  others 
to  be  advantageous  to  the  children.  ...  A  provision  then, 
such  as  is  admitted  to  be  reasonable  in  the  case  of  ille- 
gitimate children,  of  younger  children,  wherever  in  short 
the  justice  of  the  case  and  the  real  interests  of  the 
individuals  and  of  society  are  the  only  things  consid- 
ered, is,  I  conceive,  all  that  parents  owe  to  their  children, 
and  all,  therefore,  which  the  State  owes  to  the  children 


KING  MAMMON.  359 

of  those  who  die  intestate.  The  surplus, if  any,  I  hold 
that  it  may  rightfully  appropriate  to  the  general  purposes 
of  the  community.  I  would  not,  however,  be  supposed 
to  recommend  that  parents  should  never  do  more  for  their 
children  than  what,  merely  as  children,  they  have  a 
moral  right  to.  In  some  cases  it  is  imperative,  in  many 
laudable,  and  in  all  allowable  to  do  much  more.  For 
this,  however,  the  means  are  afforded  in  the  liberty  of 
bequest.  It  is  due  not  to  the  children,  but  to  the  parents, 
that  they  should  have  the  power  of  showing  marks  or 
affection,  of  requiting  services  and  sacrifices,  and  of  be- 
stowing their  wealth  according  to  their  own  preferences 
or  their  own  judgment  of  fitness. 

"  Whether  the  power  of  bequest  should  itself  be  subject 
to  limitation,  is  an  ulterior  question  of  great  importance. 
Unlike  inheritance  ab  intestato,  bequest  is  one  of  the  attri- 
butes of  property  :  the  ownership  of  a  thing  cannot  be 
looked  upon  as  complete  without  the  power  of  bestow- 
ing it,  at  death  or  during  life,  at  the  owner's  pleasure  : 
and  all  the  reasons  which  recommend  that  private  prop- 
erty should  exist,  recommend  pro  tanto  this  extension  of  it. 
But  property  is  only  a  means  to  an  end,  not  itself  the 
end.  Like  all  other  proprietary  rights,  and  even  in  a 
greater  degree  than  most,  the  power  of  bequest  may  be 
so  exercised  as  to  conflict  with  the  permanent  interests 
of  the  human  race.  It  does  so  when,  not  content  with 
bequeathing  an  estate  to  A. ,  the  testator  prescribes  that 
on  A.'s  death  it  shall  pass  to  his  eldest  son,  and  to  that 
son's  son,  and  so  on  forever.  No  doubt,  persons  have 
occasionally  exerted  themselves  more  strenuously  to 
acquire  a  fortune  from  the  hope  of  founding  a  family 
in  perpetuity ;  but  the  mischiefs  to  society  of  such 
perpetuities  outweigh  the  value  of  this  incentive  to  ex- 
ertion, and  the  incentives  in  the  case  of  those  who  have 
the  opportunities  of  making  large  fortunes  are  strong 
enough  without  it.  A  similar  abuse  of  the  power  of 
bequest  is  committed  when  a  person  who  does  the 
meritorious  act  of  leaving  property  for  public  uses, 
attempts  to  prescribe  the  details  of  its  application  in 
perpetuity  ;  when  in  founding  a  place  of  education  (for 
instance),  he  dictates  forever  what  doctrines  shall  be 
taught.  It  being  impossible  that  any  one  should  know 


360  KING  MAMMON. 

what  doctrines  will  be  fit  to  be  taught  after  he  has  been 
dead  for  centuries,  the  law  ought  not  to  give  effect  to 
such  dispositions  of  property,  unless  subject  to  the  per- 
petual revision  (  after  a  certain  interval  has  elapsed)  of  a 
fitting  authority. 

"These  are  obvious  limitations.  But  even  the  simplest 
exercise  of  the  right  of  bequest,  that  of  determining  the 
person  to  whom  property  shall  pass  immediately  on  the 
death  of  the  testator,  has  always  been  reckoned  among 
the  privileges  which  might  be  limited  or  varied,  accord- 
ing to  views  of  expediency.  The  limitations,  hitherto, 
have  been  almost  solely  in  favor  of  children.  In  England 
the  right  is  in  principle  unlimited,  almost  the  only  impedi- 
ment being  that  arising  from  a  settlement  by  a  former 
proprietor,  in  which  case  the  holder  for  the  time  being 
cannot  indeed  bequeath  his  possessions,  but  only  because 
there  is  nothing  to  bequeath,  he  having  merely  a  life  in- 
terest. By  the  Roman  law,  on  which  the  civil  legislation 
of  the  continent  of  Europe  was  founded,  bequest  originally 
was  not  permitted  at  all,  and  even  after  it  was  introduced, 
a  legilima  portio  was  compulsorily  reserved  for  each  child ; 
and  such  is  still  the  law  in  some  of  the  Continental  nations. 
By  the  French  law  since  the  Revolution,  the  parent  can 
only  dispose  by  will,  of  a  portion  equal  to  the  share  of 
one  child,  each  of  the  children  taking  an  equal  portion. 
This  entail,  as  it  may  be  called,  of  the  bulk  of  every  one's 
property  upon  the  children  collectively,  seems  to  me  as 
little  defensible  in  principle  as  an  entail  in  favor  of  one 
child,  though  it  does  not  shock  so  directly  the  idea  of  jus- 
tice. I  cannot  admit  that  parents  should  be  compelled 
to  leave  to  their  children  even  that  provision,  which,  as 
children,  I  have  contended  that  they  have  a  moral  claim 
to.  Children  may  forfeit  that  claim  by  general  un worth- 
iness, or  particular  ill-conduct  to  the  parents  ;  they  may 
have  other  resources  or  prospects  ;  what  has  been  pre- 
viously done  for  them,  in  the  way  of  education  and 
advancement  in  life,  may  fully  satisfy  their  moral  claim  ; 
or  others  may  have  claims  superior  to  theirs.  The  extreme 
restriction  of  the  power  of  bequest  in  French  law  was 
adopted  as  a  democratic  expedient  to  break  down  the 
custom  of  primogeniture,  and  counteract  the  tendency  of 
inherited  property  to  collect  in  large  masses.  I  agree  in 


KING  MAMMON.  361 

thinking  these  objects  eminently  desirable  ;  but  the  means 
used  are  not,  I  think,  the  most  judicious.  Were  I  framing 
a  code  of  laws  according  to  what  seems  to  me  best  in 
itself,  without  regard  to  existing  opinions  and  sentiments, 
I  should  prefer  to  restrict,  not  what  any  one  might  be- 
queath, but  what  any  one  should  be  permitted  to  acquire 
by  inheritance  or  bequest.  Each  person  should  have 
power  to  dispose  by  will  of  his  or  her  whole  property  ;  but 
not  to  lavish  it  in  enriching  some  one  individual,  beyond 
a  certain  maximum,  which  should  be  fixed  sufficiently 
high  to  afford  the  means  of  comfortable  independence. 
The  inequalities  of  property  which  arise  from  unequal 
industry,  frugality,  perseverance,  talents,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  even  opportunities,  are  inseparable  from  the  prin- 
ciple of  private  property,  and  if  we  accept  the  principle, 
we  must  bear  with  these  consequences  of  it ;  but  I  see 
nothing  objectionable  in  fixing  a  limit  to  what  any  one 
may  acquire  by  the  mere  favor  of  others,  without  any 
exercise  of  his  faculties,  and  in  requiring  that  if  he  desires 
any  further  accession  of  fortune  he  shall  work  for  it.  I 
do  not  conceive  that  the  degree  of  limitation  which  this 
would  impose  on  the  right  of  bequest  would  be  felt  as  a 
burdensome  restraint  by  any  testator  who  estimated  a 
large  fortune  at  its  true  value,  that  of  the  pleasures  and 
advantages  that  can  be  purchased  with  it ;  on  even  the 
most  extravagant  estimate  of  which,  it  must  be  apparent 
to  every  one,  that  the  difference  to  the  happiness  of 
the  possessor  between  a  moderate  independence  and 
five  times  as  much,  is  insignificant  when  weighed  against 
the  enjoyment  that  might  be  given,  and  the  permanent 
benefits  diffused,  by  some  other  disposal  of  the  four-fifths. 
So  long  indeed  as  the  opinion  practically  prevails,  that 
the  best  thing  which  can  be  done  for  objects  of  affection 
is  to  heap  on  them  to  satiety  those  intrinsically  worthless 
things  on  which  large  fortunes  are  mostly  expended,  there 
might  be  little  use  in  enacting  such  a  law,  even  if  it  were 
possible  to  get  it  passed,  since,  if  there  were  the  inclina- 
tion, there  would  generally  be  the  power  of  evading  it. 
The  law  would  be  unavailing  unless  the  popular  senti- 
ment went  energetically  along  with  it ;  which  (judging 
from  the  tenacious  adherence  of  public  opinion  in  France 
to  the  law  of  compulsory  division)  it  would  in  some  states 


KING  MAMMON, 

of  society  and  government  be  very  likely  to  do,  however 
much  the  contrary  may  be  the  fact  in  England,  and  at 
the  present  time.  If  the  restriction  could  be  made  practi- 
cally effectual,  the  benefit  would  be  great.  Wealth,  which 
could  no  longer  be  employed  in  over-enriching  a  few, 
would  either  be  devoted  to  objects  of  public  usefulness, 
or  if  bestowed  on  individuals,  would  be  distributed  among 
a  larger  number.  While  those  enormous  fortunes,  which 
no  one  needs  for  any  personal  purpose  but  ostentation 
or  improper  power,  would  become  much  less  numerous, 
there  would  be  a  great  multiplication  of  persons  in  easy 
circumstances  with  the  advantages  of  leisure,  and  the  real 
enjoyments  which  wealth  can  give,  except  those  of  vanity  ; 
a  class  by  whom  the  services  which  a  nation  having  lei- 
sured classes  is  entitled  to  expect  from  them,  either  by 
their  direct  exertions  or  by  the  tone  they  give  to  the  feel- 
ings and  tastes  of  the  public,  would  be  rendered  in  a  much 
more  beneficial  manner  than  at  present.  A  large  portion 
also  of  the  accumulations  of  successful  industry  would 
probably  be  devoted  to  public  uses,  either  by  direct  be- 
quest to  the  State,  or  by  the  endowment  of  institutions  ; 
as  is  already  done  very  largely  in  the  United  States,  where 
the  ideas  and  practice,  in  the  matter  of  inheritance,  seem 
to  be  unusually  rational  and  beneficial." 

Quotations  are  thus  freely  made  from  Mr.  Mill's  chapter 
on  property  and  inheritance  for,  while  many  of  his  ideas 
are  at  variance  with  those  herein  expressed,  his  frank  treat- 
ment of  the  whole  question  and  his  evident  desire  to 
ascertain  and  express  the  truth  entitle  his  writings  to  the 
sympathy  even  of  an  opponent.  Regarding  the  right  of 
bequest  as  a  portion  of  the  right  of  property,  he  saw  no 
way  of  consistently  interfering  with  a  man's  power  of 
making  a  will  by  restricting  that  privilege  directly,  inas- 
much as  he  considered  such  restriction  an  attack  upon 
the  right  of  property.  Hence  Mr.  Mill  advocated  a  limita- 
tion of  the  amount  to  be  received  as  a  bequest  or  inherit- 
ance by  any  successor,  without,  apparently,  reflecting 
that  such  a  limitation  would  be  quite  as  much  a  restriction 


KING   MAMMON.  363 

upon  the  power  of  bequest  as  upon  the  power  of  inherit- 
ance, and,  therefore,  still  an  interference  with  the  sup- 
posed right  of  property  and  not  really  different  in  its 
nature  but  only  in  degree  from  the  entire  abolition  of  the 
privilege  of  bequest.  The  writer  had  not  made  a  thorough 
analysis  of  the  rights  of  property,  bequest,  and  inherit- 
ance, when  he  wrote,  so  he  fell  into  the  inconsistency  of 
supposing  that  a  restriction  of  inheritance  such  as  he  de- 
scribes does  not  at  the  same  time  restrict  the  right  of  be- 
quest and  through  that  the  fetich  of  perpetual  ownership 
that  has  been  worshiped  so  assiduously  and  so  reverently. 
Passing  on  from  these  famous  English  writers,  we  will 
now  examine  the  thoughts  of  an  American,  Judge  Edward 
A.  Thomas,  of  New  York,  who  contributed  an  article  to  a 
periodical I  several  years  ago  on  the  nature  of  successions 
and  the  power  of  making  wills.  Judge  Thomas  is  evi- 
dently a  close  observer  of  human  nature,  and  an  extensive 
experience  in  the  courts  led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
unrestricted  privilege  of  making  wills  often  causes  great 
injustice,  and  that  our  laws  can  be  greatly  improved  in 
this  respect.  After  a  brief  consideration  of  the  history  of 
wills  and  the  abuses  to  which  the  power  has  been  sub- 
jected, he  writes  : 

"It  has  been  wisely  ordained  by  Supreme  Power  that 
we  can  take  nothing  with  us  when  we  leave  this'  earth. 
To  many  it  appears  inexpedient  and  unjust  to  permit  a 
man  after  he  has  passed  to  another  world  virtually  to 
control  and  direct  affairs  in  this.  American  institutions 
are  firmly  opposed  to  the  entail  of  real  estate.  But  our 
lawgivers  have  not  gone  far  enough.  They  should,  as 
far  as  possible,  sever  a  man's  connection  with  earthly 
affairs  the  moment  that  the  spirit  of  life  departs  from  the 
body.  Is  it  not  enough  that  he  has  absolute  control  and 
enjoyment  of  his  property  while  living,  without  affixing 
to  it  what  may  perchance  prove  a  baleful  influence  after 

1  Forum,    December,  1886. 


364  KING  MAMMON. 

he  has  ceased  to  live  ?  It  is  right  that  he  should  so  con- 
trol and  enjoy  it  during  life.  He  has,  however,  but  a 
life-interest  in  it.  This  is  settled  by  the  laws  of  nature, 
if  not  by  the  laws  of  man.  If  this  statement  is  thought 
incorrect,  carry  the  idea  to  a  final  sequence.  In  England 
real  estate  has  been  entailed  without  restraint.  In  sev- 
eral American  States  devises  are  limited  to  two  lives  then 
in  being.  By  this  very  limitation  law-makers  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  stultify  themselves.  They  say  that  the  tes- 
tator may  control  it,  and  again  that  he  may  not.  They 
say  that  he  shall  have  the  absolute  disposition  of  it,  but 
immediately  restrict  that  disposition.  They  interfere 
with  the  limit  which  nature  has  fixed  to  his  control  over 
it,  and  attempt  to  make  one  themselves. 

"  If  a  man  is  given  the  right  to  dispose  of  his  property, 
so  that  what  he  directs  is  to  be  carried  out  and  enforced 
after  his  death,  why  should  he  be  limited  at  all  in  that 
disposition  ?  Or  why  should  he  be  limited  to  less  than 
four,  six,  or  eight  lives  ?  It  is  only  a  question  of  degree 
or  extent.  The  very  fact  that  it  has  been  found  neces- 
sary to  place  so  firm  and  so  strict  a  limitation  upon  the 
power  to  dispose  of  property  by  will,  certainly  tends  to 
prove  that  the  principle  of  disposing  of  all  property  in 
that  manner  is  evil.  Otherwise,  no  limitation  would  be 
necessary.  If,  however,  such  a  power  has  proved  benefi- 
cent, why  not  extend  it  to  two,  four,  or  six  lives,  and 
so  on  ad  infinitum  ?  Should  this  be  followed  up,  the  re- 
sult would  be  a  strange  condition  of  affairs.  Our  laws 
upon  this  subject,  as  I  have  before  stated,  are  largely 
derived  from  those  of  England.  But  with  laws  that  have 
proved  of  the  highest  value  to  us,  others  fit  only  for  a 
monarchy  have  be^n  engrafted  on  our  system  of  juris- 
prudence, and  with  them  we  have  received  a  mass  of 
prejudices  which  have  retarded  our  advancement  to  a 
more  liberal  plan. 

"  If  a  parent  desires  to  distribute  his  property  equitably 
among  his  children,  he  can  rarely  do  better  than  to  follow 
the  statutes  of  distribution.  If  he  does  not  propose  to 
deal  equitably,  then  he  should  not  be  given  the  power  to 
do  otherwise.  This  might  sometimes  work  a  hardship,  but 
laws  cannot  be  enacted  which  will  reach  all  cases  or 
remedy  every  evil.  They  may,  however,  be  so  drawn 


KING   MAMMON.  365 

as  to  prove  beneficent  in  a  majority  of  instances.  There 
are  many  reasons  for  believing  that  a  wise  and  general 
law  for  the  distribution  of  property  will  better  effect  this 
than  one  which  permits  each  individual  to  be  governed 
by  his  own  whims,  notions,  and  prejudices.  A  man  is 
responsible  for  the  care,  the  health,  the  education,  and 
the  happiness  of  his  children.  That  responsibility  does 
not  cease  when  they  attain  majority.  He  should  treat 
them  with  strict  impartiality.  For  a  mere  whim  he 
should  not  be  permitted  to  favor  one  more  than  another. 
Owing  to  his  good  or  bad  management  they  are  generally 
what  he  finds  them  to  be.  He  has  no  right  to  bring  them 
up  in  comfort  and  luxury,  and  then,  for  some  freak,  to 
leave  them  nearly  or  quite  penniless.  Their  errors  as 
well  as  their  virtues  are  frequently  attributable  entirely 
to  their  parents.  The  child  against  whom  the  parent 
feels  most  bitterness  is  often  the  very  one  who,  in 
intellect,  temperament,  habits,  and  aspirations  most 
nearly  resembles  that  parent  himself. 

"  It  has  been  presumed  that  natural  affection  will  guide 
a  man  right  in  the  treatment  of  his  children.  Such  has 
not  proved  to  be  the  case.  The  instances  are  numerous 
where  a  favorite  child,  or  a  young  and  second  wife,  or  a 
spiritual  adviser,  or  a  fit  of  passion,  an  unreasonable 
bias,  or  merely  an  old  man's  fancy,  has  completely 
changed  the  just  and  natural  disposition  of  property;  so 
numerous,  in  fact,  are  they,  that  they  have  become  the 
rule  rather  than  the  exception.  A  general  statute  pro- 
viding that,  except  for  special  reasons,  each  child  shall 
receive  share  and  share  alike,  would  not  only  appear  to 
be  the  most  equitable  in  by  far  the  majority  of  instances, 
but  would  promote  family  concord  and  happiness,  and 
would  diminish  family  feuds  and  litigation  to  a  remark- 
able extent. 

"In  one  case,  which  arose  not  far  from  Buffalo,  a 
man,  with  the  direct  aid  and  counsel  of  his  wife,  and 
with  the  help  of  two  children,  had  amassed  quite  a  for- 
tune. They  had  actually  earned  more  of  it  than  he  had 
himself.  But  he,  thinking  to  render  his  name  dis- 
tinguished, decided  to  establish  a  school,  and  when  his 
will  was  opened,  his  wife  found  herself  with  but  a  small 
dower  interest  (  of  which  he  had  not  the  power  to  deprive 


366  KING   MAMMON. 

her),  and  her  sons  penniless.  In  another  instance  a  man 
engaged  as  a  large  manufacturer  became  seriously  em- 
barrassed financially,  but  by  the  skill,  sagacity,  and 
assistance  of  his  eldest  son,  recovered  from  his  difficulties, 
and  finally  died  a  wealthy  man.  At  the  examination  of 
his  will,  it  was  ascertained  that  the  eldest  son  was  disin- 
herited. This  had  been  done,  not  because  that  son  was 
any  richer  than  some  of  the  others,  for  he  was  not.  It 
was  so  decided  for  the  reason  that  this  son,  in  choosing  a 
wife,  had  preferred  to  suit  himself  rather  than  his  father. 
"The  laws  should  be  so  amended  that  when  a  man 
dies  leaving  children  or  their  offspring,  he  shall  not  be 
permitted  to  will  away  from  them  the  bulk  of  his  estate, 
but  that,  after  providing  for  the  widow,  it  shall  be  equi- 
tably divided  among  his  descendants.  .  .  .  Should  the 
deceased  leave  no  descendants,  a  far  greater  liberty  in 
the  disposition  of  his  property  should  be  given  him." 

Judge  Thomas,  like  nearly  every  other  thoughtful  man 
of  the  present  era,  finds  something  apparently  wrong  in 
the  absolute  power  of  bequeathing  wealth,  but  he  is  un- 
able to  free  his  mind  from  the  ancient  idea  that  a  natural 
right  of  succession  exists  in  the  children  independent 
of  any  other  relations  sustained  by  them  to  their  parents. 
John  Stuart  Mill  thought  that  the  ancestor's  privilege  of 
bequest  is  sacred,  while  Judge  Thomas  has  no  reverence 
for  the  dying  man's  claim,  but  worships  the  presumed 
right  of  the  descendants  to  succeed  to  entire  possession. 
Neither  of  these  writers  commenced  with  a  careful  con- 
sideration of  the  nature  of  property,  bequests,  and  inherit- 
ance, so  they  arrive  at  opposite  conclusions  while 
endeavoring  to  reach  the  same  ends.  Their  ideas  are 
valuable  and  interesting,  Judge  Thomas,  especially, 
illustrating  the  abuses  to  which  the  making  of  wills  is 
subject. 

Blackstone's  famous  treatise  on  English  law  furnishes 
interesting  comments  on  the  principles  of  successions. 
This  learned  writer  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  delight- 


KING   MAMMON.  367 

fully  clear  and  simple  style,  has  much  to  say  of  property 
and  successions,  presenting  the  accepted  views  of  his 
time  without  much  inquiry  into  the  justice  or  injustice  of 
established  institutions.  Concerning  property,  he  naively 
says  : 

"  There  is  nothing  which  so  generally  strikes  the  imag- 
ination and  engages  the  affections  of  mankind  as  the  right 
of  property  ;  or  that  sole  and  despotic  dominion  which 
one  man  claims  and  exercises  over  the  external  things  of 
the  world,  in  total  exclusion  of  the  rights  of  any  other 
individual  in  the  universe.  And  yet  there  are  very  few 
that  will  give  themselves  the  trouble  to  consider  the 
original  and  foundation  of  this  right.  Pleased  as  we  are 
with  the  possession,  we  seem  afraid  to  look  back  to  the 
means  by  which  it  was  acquired,  as  if  fearful  of  some 
defect  in  our  title ;  or,  at  best,  we  rest  satisfied  with  the 
decision  of  the  laws  in  our  favor  without  examining  the 
reason  or  authority  upon  which  those  laws  have  been 
built.  We  think  it  enough  that  our  title  is  derived  from 
the  grant  of  the  former  proprietor,  by  descent  from  our 
ancestors,  or  by  the  last  will  and  testament  of  the  dying 
owner  ;  not  caring  to  reflect  that  (accurately  and  strictly 
speaking)  there  is  no  foundation  in  nature  or  in  natural 
law  why  a  set  of  words  upon  parchment  should  convey 
the  dominion  of  land  ;  why  the  son  should  have  the  right 
to  exclude  his  fellow-creatures  from  a  determinate  spot  of 
ground,  because  his  father  had  done  so  before  him  ;  or 
why  the  occupier  of  a  particular  field  or  of  a  jewel,  when 
lying  on  his  deathbed,  and  no  longer  able  to  maintain 
possession,  should  be  entitled  to  tell  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  which  of  them  should  enjoy  it  after  him.  These 
inquiries,  it  must  be  owned,  would  be  useless  and  even 
troublesome  in  common  life.  It  is  well  if  the  mass  of 
mankind  will  obey  the  laws  when  made,  without  scrutiniz- 
ing too  nicely  into  the  reason  for  making  them." 

Sir  William  then  proceeds  to  explain  the  origin  of 
property  as  a  matter  of  scientific  but  not  of  practical 
interest,  according  to  the  ideas  then  generally  accepted, 
ascribing  individual  occupancy  as  the  foundation  of  the 


368  KING    MAMMON. 

right,  a  theory  which  has  been  exploded  by  the  investi- 
gation of  early  social  institutions  showing  the  nature  of 
the  family  and  family  clan  in  early  government.  Black- 
stone's  thinking  is  accurate  and  very  clearly  and  pre- 
cisely expressed ;  but  like  every  other  man  who  has  tried 
to  discover  a  just  cause  for  an  outrageously  unjust  condi- 
tion, he  becomes  hopelessly  bewildered  in  determining 
the  nature  of  rights  to  property.  His  mind  is  too  vigor- 
ous to  admit  the  idea  of  perpetual  ownership,  so  he  dis- 
misses the  whole  question  by  saying  that  "  such  disputes 
savor  too  much  of  nice  and  scholastic  refinement."  His 
commentator,  Joseph  Chitty,  is  more  orthodox  in  the 
sacred  creed  of  perpetual  ownership  than  Blackstone,  and 
in  a  note  he  disagrees  with  the  latter  in  the  following 
language  : 

"But  how  or  when,  then,  does  property  commence? 
I  conceive  no  better  answer  can  be  given  than  by  occu- 
pancy, or  when  anything  is  separated  for  private  use 
from  the  common  stores  of  nature.  This  is  agreeable  to 
the  reason  and  sentiments  of  mankind  prior  to  all  civil 
establishments. " 

Having  expressed  very  liberal  and  progressive  ideas  in 
relation  to  property,  Sir  William  Blackstone  then  proceeds 
to  consider  successions,  and  says  : 

"The  right  of  inheritance  or  descent  to  the  children 
and  relations  of  the  deceased,  seems  to  have  been  allowed 
much  earlier  than  the  right  of  devising  by  testament. 
We  are  apt  to  conceive,  at  first  view,  that  it  has  nature 
on  its  side,  yet  we  often  mistake  for  nature  what  we  find 
established  by  long  and  inveterate  custom.  It  is  certainly 
a  wise  and  effectual,  but  clearly  a  political  establishment, 
since  the  permanent  right  of  property  invested  in  the 
ancestor  himself  was  no  natural  but  merely  a  aw? right." 

Chitty's  reverence  for  the  gospel  of  property  again 
causes  him  to  dissent  from  these  conclusions,  in  a  note 
couched  in  the  following  language  : 


KING   MAMMON.  369 

"  I  cannot  agree  with  the  learned  commentator  that  the 
permanent  right  of  property  vested  in  the  ancestor  himself 
(that  is  for  his  life)  is  not  a  natural  but  merely  a  civil 
right.  I  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  notion  of 
property  is  universal,  and  is  suggested  to  the  mind  of  man 
by  reason  and  nature,  prior  to  all  positive  institutions  and 
civilized  refinements.  If  the  laws  of  the  land  were  sus- 
pended, we  should  be  under  the  same  moral  and  natural 
obligations  to  refrain  from  invading  each  other's  property 
as  from  attacking  and  assaulting  each  other's  persons. 
I  am  obliged  also  to  differ  from  the  learned  judge,  and  all 
writers  upon  general  law,  who  maintain  that  children 
have  no  better  claim  by  nature  to  succeed  to  the  property 
of  their  deceased  parents  than  strangers,  and  that  the 
preference  given  to  them  originated  solely  in  political 
establishments.  The  affection  of  parents  toward  their 
children  is  the  most  powerful  and  universal  principle 
which  nature  has  planted  in  the  human  breast ;  and  it 
cannot  be  conceived,  even  in  the  most  savage  state,  that 
anyone  is  so  destitute  of  that  affection  and  of  reason,  who 
would  not  revolt  at  the  position  that  a  stranger  has  as 
good  a  right  as  his  children  to  the  property  of  the  deceased 
parent." 

In  this  discussion  between  the  two  writers,  it  will  be 
observed  that  each  ignores  productive  effort  as  a  factor  in 
property  rights,  the  entire  attention  of  both  being  con- 
fined to  occupancy  and  consanguinity.  Hence  to  clear 
modern  thought  each  will  appear  partly  right  and  partly 
wrong  ;  for  the  children  unquestionably  have  a  'better 
moral  right  than  strangers  to  the  extent  of  their  productive 
efforts  in  forming  the  family  possessions,  but  no  better 
right  in  excess  of  that  from  the  mere  fact  of  consanguinity. 
Blackstone's  ideas  were  quite  radical  on  the  subject  of 
successions,  as  the  following  paragraph  will  indicate  : 

"  If  a  man  disinherits  his  son,  by  a  will  duly  executed, 

and  leaves  his  estate  to  a  stranger,  there  are  many  who 

consider  this  proceeding  as  contrary  to  natural  justice  ; 

while   others   so   scrupulously   adhere    to   the   supposed 

24 


370  KING   MAMMON. 

intentions  of  the  dead,  that  if  a  will  of  lands  be  attested 
by  only  two  witnesses  instead  of  three,  which  the  law 
requires,  they  are  apt  to  imagine  that  the  heir  is  bound 
in  conscience  to  relinquish  his  title  to  the  devisee.  But 
both  of  them  certainly  proceed  upon  very  erroneous 
principles,  as  if,  on  the  one  hand,  the  son  had  by  nature 
a  right  to  succeed  to  his  father's  lands ;  or  as  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  owner  was  by  nature  entitled  to  direct 
the  succession  of  his  property  after  his  own  decease. 
Whereas  the  law  of  nature  suggests,  that  on  the  death  of 
the  possessor  the  estate  should  again  become  common, 
and  become  open  to  the  next  occupant,  unless  otherwise 
ordered  for  the  sake  of  civil  peace  by  the  positive  law  of 
society." 

The  substance  of  the  arguments  for  and  against  be- 
quests is  also  mentioned  by  Lord  Chief  Baron  Gilbert  in 
his  "Law  of  Descents,"  published  in  1792,  wherein  he 
states  that — 

"It  has  been  disputed  whether  testaments  owe  their 
origin  to  a  natural  or  positive  law.  But  since  things 
(over  which  the  property  was  first  established)  are  in- 
tended only  for  the  uses  of  men  in  this  life,  they  thought 
it  sufficient  to  that  end  to  allow  the  occupier  the  command 
of  his  possessions  during  his  life,  but  that  the  manage- 
ment of  what  belonged  to  the  dead  should  be  left  to  the 
living. l  But,  on  the  other  side,  if  we  consider  that  men 

1  The  following  illustrative  cases  of  the  absurd  principle  involved  in 
the  dead  man's  decrees  were  cited  by  H.  L.Wayland,  of  Philadelphia,  in 
a  paper  read  before  the  American  Association  of  Social  Science ;  em- 
bodying views  very  similar  to  those  expressed  in  this  book  : 

A  woman  left  by  will  certain  property  "  to  be  used  in  printing,  pub- 
lishing and  propagating  the  sacred  writing  of  Joanna  Southcote." 
Presently  the  last  member  of  the  sect  founded  by  Joanna  died,  but  for 
all  that  the  English  courts  held  that  the  will  must  be  carried  out  and  the 
property  devoted  through  all  time  as  prescribed  by  the  testator. 

A  man  left  a  foundation  requiring  that  each  year  a  sermon  be  preached 
in  Norwich,  England,  to  the  Walloons  in  Low  Dutch.  So  each  year  a 
clergyman  who  does  not  understand  the  language,  commits  to  memory 
a  sermon  and  recites  it  like  a  parrot  to  bare  walls. 

The  Duke  of  Richmond  is  receiving  from  the  British  Treasury  as 
a  hereditary  pension,  ^19,000  a  year  because  of  the  relationship  which 
his  ancestress,  Louise  Querouaille,  stood  to  the  Merry  Monarch,  Charles 


KING   MAMMON.  3/1 

are  obliged  to  take  particular  care  of  their  children,  as 
well  as  of  others  allied  to  them  by  blood,  and  that  it  is  not 
sufficient  (for  the  peace  of  society)  to  introduce  such  a 
dominion  of  things  as  would  turn  only  to  present  use 
(since  this  would  create  no  less  confusion  than  the  primi- 
tive community),  it  will  appear  necessary  that  the  con- 
tinuance of  property  should  not  depend  on  any  fixed 
period  of  time,  but  be  indefinite,  and  so  pass  down  and 
be  continued  to  others.  Besides,  this  privilege  is  a  great 
encouragement  to  industry.  For  men  were  apt  to  extend 
their  right  to  the  common  productions  of  the  earth  too 
far,  and  in  their  wants  would  easily  persuade  themselves 
that  no  appropriation  would  deprive  them  of  it  ;  there- 
fore, whatever  could  prevail  on  them  to  lay  up  the  fruits 
of  the  earth,  and  prevent  that  rapine  which  the  want  of 
them  produced,  must  of  consequence  be  highly  reason- 
able ;  and  what  could  be  a  greater  motive  than,  (after  a 
full  enjoyment  of  them  in  this  life,)  a  free  power  to  dis- 
pose of  them  to  those  whose  interest  and  happiness  ought 
to  be  our  greatest  concern  ?  " 

Recent  thought  on  the  testamentary  laws  of  England 
is  expressed  by  Lady  Cook  in  the  following  words  closing 
an  historical  review  l  of  successions  in  that  country  : 

"The  law  which  governs  the  disposal  of  property  by  the 
present  system  of  wills  and  heirs  is  defective  in  many 
points  ;  but  there  are  two  to  which  we  will  confine  our 
attention,  because  they  are  so  grossly  unjust,  and  are 
opposed  to  morality  and  the  general  welfare  of  society. 
These  are  primogeniture  and  the  absolute  power  of  the 
testator  to  will  as  it  pleases  him.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  advantages  of  primogeniture  when  military 
tenures  obtained  and  when  lands  could  not  be  alienated 
with  the  consent  of  the  feudal  lord,  its  existence  now  is  a 
social  anachronism  and  an  evil  which  should  be  speedily 
abolished.  Its  object  is  the  perpetuation  and  accumula- 

II.  This  sum  has  been  paid  for  over  200  years,  $20,000,000  in  all. 
Should  it  continue  for  all  time  ? 

A  man  in  England  left  an  estate,  the  income  of  which  was  to  buy 
fagots  to  burn  heretics.  Must  future  generations  use  the  fund  according 
to  his  directions  ? 

1  Westminster  Review,  February,   1895. 


3/2  KING   MAMMON. 

tion  of  property.  .  .  .  When  any  excess  of  wealth  with 
some  and  of  poverty  with  others  becomes  widespread,  it 
is  as  certain  to  produce  popular  disturbances  to-day  as 
in  any  period  of  the  past.  Athens,  the  first  mother  of 
liberty,  fell  from  this  cause,  which  was  brought  about  by 
a  slight  change  in  her  laws,  giving  larger  powers  to 
childless  testators,  and  thus  encouraging  the  growth  of 
vast  estates.  It  would  be  impossible  to  enumerate  the 
corruptions  and  economic  wrongs  that  in  all  countries 
and  at  all  times  have  resulted  from  individual  ac- 
cumulation and  possession  of  extraordinary  wealth. 
Custom  has  so  hardened  us  since  the  Conquest  that  even 
good  men  sometimes  see  no  immorality  in  the  law  of 
primogeniture — a  law  which  gives  the  whole  of  a  man's 
landed  estate  to  his  eldest  son,  and  makes  paupers  of  the 
widow  and  the  other  children.  ...  It  is  an  almost  univer- 
sal axiom  that  every  legal  right  has  its  corresponding 
duty.  As  the  law  now  allows  a  sane  man  to  make  his 
will  and  compels  the  fulfillment  of  his  wishes  after  death, 
it  follows  that  its  provisions  should  neither  violate 
public  sentiment  nor  public  decency.  There  should  be  a 
well-defined  limit  to  testamentary  power.  It  should  not 
lie  in  the  dead  hand  to  stab  the  living.  We  compel  a 
man  to  treat  his  wife  and  family  with  humanity  before  he 
dies  ;  we  should  see,  also,  that  his  will  accords  with  this 
afterwards.  But  may  not  a  man  do  as  he  likes  with  his 
own  ?  We  answer  No  !  not  entirely.  He  should  have 
absolute  power  over  a  portion  only.  He  should  not  be 
allowed  to  act  against  natural  claims,  against  justice  and 
decency,  or  to  prefer  those  more  remote  to  those  that 
are  near.  He  should  not  be  permitted  to  beggar  his 
family  or  any  member  thereof.  ...  It  should  be  de- 
manded that  no  part  of  a  will  shall  be  valid  which  may 
be  improperly  devised,  or  in  which  the  whole  of  a  man's 
family  is  not  duly  provided  for.  In  this  matter  we  might 
take  a  useful  lesson  from  other  countries,  for  however 
advanced  we  may  be  in  some  things,  we  are  behind 
many  in  this.  Mahometan  law,  for  instance,  commenced 
twelve  and  a  half  centuries  ago,  and  on  this  point  it  is  in 
many  respects  far  superior  to  ours." 

These  extracts  present  the  conflicting  theories  of  prop- 


KING   MAMMON.  373 

erty  and  successions  usually  entertained  in  one  form  or 
another  by  nearly  every  man.  We  will  now  proceed  to 
analyze  the  nature  of  such  claims  by  applying  to  them 
the  same  principles  of  fairness  or  justice  that  men  habit- 
ually apply  to  other  questions  in  the  present  era.  Men 
usually  concede  at  the  present  time  that  the  foundation  of 
special  or  private  rights  to  wealth  exists  in  the  application 
of  labor,  by  either  mental  or  physical  effort,  to  the  thing 
which  is  thus  claimed.  For  instance,  the  people  of  the 
United  States  are  supposed  to  have  equal  rights  in  the  fish 
of  the  ocean  washing  its  shores,  within  the  limits  of  the 
national  claims.  One  man  may  fish  there  all  his  lifetime, 
but  he  never  has  anything  more  than  his  conceded  equal 
right  till  he  catches  one  of  the  finny  tribe,  when  he 
immediately  acquires  a  special  claim  to  that  particular 
fish,  which  constitutes  the  right  of  property.  He  eats 
his  fish,  and  the  product  of  his  effort  is  said  to  be  de- 
stroyed, although  the  elements  of  the  food  still  exist  in 
chemical  transformations  of  no  further  immediate  utility 
as  fish-property  to  other  human  beings.  Similarly,  men 
in  the  United  States  theoretically  owned  the  entire  land- 
surface  of  the  country  in  common  before  it  was  dis- 
tributed and  placed  under  special  rights,  and  the  entire 
people  are  still  supposed  to  own  all  public  lands.  Under 
the  homestead  laws  and  various  other  statutes,  the  lands 
have  been  divided  and  distributed,  but  the  basis  of  the 
special  rights  thus  recognized  is  either  direct  or  indirect 
labor.  Under  the  homestead  law,  a  man  must  complete 
certain  improvements  on  his  land  before  he  can  acquire  a 
title,  his  claim  thus  being  established  by  direct  labor ;  and 
in  all  other  cases  he  must  make  a  payment  to  the  whole 
people,  which  is  merely  indirect  labor,  since  his  money  is 
supposed  to  represent  work  of  some  kind.  The  rights  to 
the  land,  both  equal  and  special  or  private,  are  identically 
the  same  as  the  rights  to  the  fish,  and  are  acquired  in 


374  KING   MAMMON. 

exactly  the  same  way,  the  only  difference  being  that  the 
fish  by  immediate  chemical  transformation  loses  all  further 
value  as  soon  as  it  is  eaten,  whereas  the  usefulness  and 
value  of  the  land  continues  in  some  degree  greater  or  less 
than  its  original  condition.  If  the  fish  were  a  magic 
halibut  that  grew  again  to  its  original  dimensions  immedi- 
ately after  being  consumed,  so  as  to  have  a  permanent 
form  and  a  persistent  value,  a  certain  class  of  thinkers 
would  contend  that  different  rights  were  involved  in  the 
possession  of  that  particular  fish  from  those  existing  in 
the  possession  of  other  denizens  of  the  sea. 

In  our  competitive  existence,  the  universal  idea  of  fair- 
ness is  that  every  man  is  entitled  to  whatever  results  from 
his  own  productive  efforts.  This  doctrine  is  invariably 
the  plea  of  those  who  oppose  all  denunciation  of  wealth 
conditions  and  distribution.  "If  a  man  catches  fish  in 
the  sea  of  life,"  say  these  people,  "  and  if  these  fish  happen 
to  be  worth  one  million  or  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars, 
where  is  the  wrong  ?  The  men  who  did  not  fish  or  could 
not  fish  ought  not  to  blame  the  successful  angler  nor  try 
to  deprive  him  of  the  reward  of  his  efforts."  Men  now 
acquire  private  rights  to  wealth  of  all  kinds,  to  land,  to 
fish,  and  everything  else  deemed  valuable,  by  the  suc- 
cessful application  of  their  own  efforts,  and  at  one  time 
they  acquired  titles  to  other  human  beings  in  exactly  the 
same  way.  In  the  justice  of  the  past,  men  were  supposed 
to  have  a  private  right  of  ownership  in  other  men,  and 
until  recently  that  portion  of  generic  man  denominated 
woman  had  no  right  of  ownership  in  anything  whatever. 
But  we  will  not  further  discuss  these  little  variations  in 
private  rights,  although  it  may  not  be  an  unreasonable 
speculation  to  surmise  that  possibly,  many  years  hence, 
mankind  may  believe  that  the  unlucky  fisherman  who 
throws  his  line  patiently  all  day  is  really  entitled  to 
something  whether  he  catches  it  or  not,  and  that  the 


KING   MAMMON.  375 

other  unfortunate  who  is  crowded  out  of  all  the  desirable 
fishing  grounds  by  his  stronger  associates,  and  thus 
starved  into  cleaning  their  fish  for  the  fragments,  deserves 
a  better  fate  than  the  social  fishermen  now  bestow  upon 
him. 

The  real  question  for  society  to  determine  is  not  so 
much  the  acquirement  of  private  rights,  as  their  real 
nature  and  continuance.  Granting  that  unequal  private 
rights  to  wealth  in  all  its  forms  justly  exist  as  the  result  of 
varying  human  effort  and  good  or  bad  fortune,  the  real 
question  is  :  How  long  do  those  rights  continue  and 
when  do  they  terminate  ?  The  people  of  every  civilized 
country  in  the  world  declare  by  their  laws  that  all  such 
rights,  with  but  two  exceptions,1  hereinafter  mentioned, 
are  perpetual.  That  is,  if  Herbert  Spencer  catches  a  fish 
the  constituents  of  that  animal  are  his  forever,  and  if  he 
secures  an  acre  of  land,  his  right  to  it  becomes  a  per- 
petuity in  the  same  way.  Both  fish  and  land  are  parts  of 
the  earth  to  which  he  obtains  a  right  that  theoretically 
and  practically,  so  far  as  the  relations  of  other  men  to 
him  and  his  agents  are  concerned,  absolutely  excludes 
others  so  long  as  men  shall  exist  on  this  planet  and  agree 
to  maintain  established  conditions. 

Mr.  Spencer,  in  the  extract  previously  quoted,  says  : 
"Presented  in  its  naked  form,  the  proposition  that  a  man 
can  own  a  thing  when  he  is  dead  is  absurd."  He  regards 
that  absurdity,  however,  as  applying  only  to  entail  and 
to  the  privileges  still  existing  by  which  a  decedent  is  al- 
lowed to  restrict  the  use  of  his  wealth  in  the  hands  of  his 
immediate  successors  under  the  provisions  of  his  will. 
That  kind  of  restriction  Mr.  Spencer  regards  as  an  absurd- 
ity, but  he  is  strangely  blind  to  the  equal  absurdity  in  any 
power  whatever  of  controlling  the  use  of  wealth  at  the 
deathbed.  Mr.  Spencer  cannot  conceive  that  the  rights 

1  Patents  and  Copyrights. 


3/6  KING   MAMMON. 

of  any  human  being  except  the  dying  man  and  his 
legatees  or  other  legal  successors  are  involved  in  any  way 
whatever  by  the  disposition  of  estates.  His  thinking  is 
cramped  by  the  narrow  idea  that  equitable  private  rights 
are  justly  transmissible  to  a  successor,  and  following  out 
this  assumption,  if  some  person  had  long  ago  acquired  an 
equitable  private  right  among  his  contemporaries  to  the 
land  upon  which  London  is  built,  he  would  in  the  name 
of  that  "  Justice"  embodied  in  his  recent  work,  maintain 
the  claims  of  the  proprietor's  descendants  or  legatees  to 
absolute  ownership  of  the  entire  estate,  disregarding  the 
real  fact,  which  inevitably  takes  precedence  of  all  "  paper 
constitutions  "  and  Spencerian  ideas  of  justice,  that  human 
rights  area  matter  of  equity  between  the  living  alone,  and 
not  between  the  living  and  the  dead.  He  also  disregards 
the  fact  that  instead  of  any  man's  really  owning  the  earth 
or  any  part  thereof,  the  essential  truth  is  that  the  earth 
owns  him  ;  for  his  body,  if  not  his  soul,  came  out  of  it, 
and  all  the  absurd  human  laws  ever  enacted  will  neither 
change  his  destiny  nor  prevent  him  from  going  whence  he 
came.  Instead  of  being  an  eternal  producer,  man  is 
eternally  produced  in  a  new  form,  but  rather  than  admit 
this  truth  so  humiliating  to  his  egotism,  he  persistently 
endeavors  to  project  his  power  into  the  future  wherein  it  is 
impossible  for  him  to  project  his  individual  life.  He  regards 
that  portion  of  the  earth  which  has  temporarily  fallen 
under  his  dominion  during  his  brief  existence,  as  a  thing 
in  which  are  involved  only  his  own  rights  and  those  of 
his  immediate  and  direct  successors.  He  believes  that  all 
other  human  beings  have  no  just  claims  whatever  in  the 
future  to  any  share  in  the  use  of  that  portion  of  the  earth 
which  has  fallen  under  his  authority  ;  and  thus,  dominated 
by  these  silly  ideas,  society  moves  onward. 

Is  it  any  wonder   that   such    a    progression    leads    to 
catastrophes?     The  laws  of  nature  express  eternal  truth, 


KING  MAMMON.  37; 

and  whenever  man  attempts  to  subvert  them  by  preten- 
sions so  utterly  at  variance  with  all  life,  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest,  the  lie  that  he  thus  enunciates  in  his  laws 
and  customs  sooner  or  later  brings  its  own  penalty  in  the 
destruction  of  human  warfare. 

Judge  Thomas  seems  to  perceive  that  exercising  the 
power  of  making  a  will  inevitably  establishes  a  perpetuity 
of  possession  by  means  of  agents,  and  merges  one  man's 
life  into  that  of  a  successor  in  a  way  that  becomes  an 
injustice  to  direct  descendants,  although  he  has  not  per- 
ceived, or  at  least  he  has  ignored,  the  greater  truth  that  a 
will  defies  and  disregards  the  rights  of  all  other  survivors 
who  may  not  be  related  to  the  dying  man.  The  effect  of 
testaments  may  be  illustrated  by  a  mechanical  experiment. 
Lay  upon  a  level  surface  fifty  long  iron  links  in  a  row  as 
though  to  make  a  chain.  Each  link  represents  a  lifetime 
in  a  line  of  descent,  and  fifty  generations  are  expressed. 
In  order  to  make  a  continuous  chain,  it  matters  not 
whether  we  connect  all  at  once  by  entail,  or  whether  we 
connect  them  one  at  a  time  by  the  forms  of  a  modern 
will,  for  the  real  effect  of  both  is  to  project  the  power  ac- 
quired for  a  lifetime  by  human  effort  into  the  future,  and 
to  confer  its  privileges  upon  other  men  who  have  not 
made  such  efforts,  thus  becoming  the  source  of  tyranny, 
idleness,  and  social  corruption.  Entail  established  the 
dead  man's  power  over  many  succeeding  generations  at 
once,  and  theoretically  over  all.  The  testament  estab- 
lishes his  power  over  the  next  generation  and  appoints  an 
agent  to  carry  it  into  effect,  the  control  being  further  ex- 
tended into  the  future  by  other  wills.  The  process  is 
identical  in  its  nature  with  entail,  and  many  of  the  evils  of 
the  discarded  doctrine  of  property  apply  to  the  one  still 
retained. 

The  apparent  similarity  between  a  gift  and  a  bequest 
confuses  the  thoughts  of  many  people  when  they  con- 


3/8  KING   MAMMON. 

sider  these  two  acts,  and  it  has  led  Mr.  Spencer  to  argue 
that  a  bequest  is  just  because  it  is  only  one  form  of  a  gift. 
If,  however,  the  real  nature  of  equitable  property  is  that 
of  a  life-lease,  as  herein  argued,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
right  of  gift  is  justly  controllable  by  the  community  at  its 
own  pleasure  and  for  its  own  interest.  A  moment's  re- 
flection will  also  show  that  the  particular  form  of  every 
act  or  the  circumstances  surrounding  it  and  not  its  general 
nature  make  it  either  right  or  wrong.  For  instance, 
murder  is  one  form  of  homicide,  but  we  honor  the  brave 
man  who  protects  injured  innocence  by  slaying  the  per- 
secutor, while  we  condemn  to  ignominious  death  the  man 
who  destroys  the  life  of  a  human  being  from  motives  not 
pleasing  to  our  moral  sense.  Any  man  is  accorded  the 
right  and  is  even  burdened  with  the  duty  of  snatching  the 
knife  or  pistol  from  the  hands  of  a  prospective  suicide, 
and  of  destroying  either  weapon  if  need  be  to  protect  the 
life.  Yet  these  acts,  under  a  different  intention  or  motive, 
would  become  assault  and  theft,  and  society  would  inflict 
penalties.  Ordinarily  a  man  may  burn  his  own  property, 
but  if  it  be  situated  so  that  the  fire  necessarily  consumes 
his  neighbor's  wealth,  the  deed  is  arson  and  society  jails 
him  for  his  presumption.  Similarly,  if  one  man  owned 
New  York  City,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  society  would 
permit  him  to  expel  his  tenants  and  destroy  the  wealth 
under  the  assumption  that  it  was  absolutely  his  own. 
The  circumstances  surrounding  any  act,  in  the  judgment 
of  humanity,  make  it  either  good  or  bad,  just  or  unjust. 
When  a  man  premeditates  homicide  from  some  selfish  or 
vindictive  motive,  it  becomes  murder.  When  he  burns 
his  own  wealth  without  a  sufficient  regard  for  the  rights 
of  his  associates,  the  otherwise  harmless  act  becomes 
arson.  When  he  gives  his  wealth  to  another  man  at  the 
expiration  of  his  own  life,  because  he  knows  it  will  be  of 
no  further  use  to  him,  the  gift  becomes  a  bequest;  and 


KING   MAMMON.  379 

there  is  quite  as  much  difference  between  the  real  nature 
of  the  two  acts  as  there  is  between  justifiable  homicide 
and  murder,  or  between  burning  a  handkerchief  and 
setting  fire  to  a  house  in  a  crowded  city.  Gifts  are  usually 
considered  praiseworthy,  and  homicide  is  considered  blame- 
ful ;  yet  some  forms  of  homicide  become  praiseworthy, 
and  some  forms  of  gift  dangerous  and  reprehensible. 

Men  give  away  very  little  wealth  during  their  lives, 
because  they  love  themselves  better  than  they  do  other 
people,  and,  as  Judge  Thomas  shrewdly  observes,  they 
would  not  often  show  any  great  liberality  in  their  wills  if 
they  could  do  anything  else  with  the  wealth  or  better  ex- 
tend their  influence  in  any  other  way.  The  genuine  gift 
deprives  a  man  of  wealth  which  he  might  otherwise  use 
or  control,  but  the  spurious  gift  in  the  form  of  a  bequest 
deprives  him  of  absolutely  nothing,  and  all  that  he  gives 
away  is  really  the  property  of  survivors.  The  testator 
does  not  give  up  any  rights  of  his  own  in  making  the  will, 
but  merely  sacrifices  the  rights  of  a  portion  of  the  sur- 
vivors by  arbitrarily  designating  his  own  successors.  As 
the  intention  of  the  homicide  makes  his  act  murder,  so 
the  expectancy  of  death  makes  the  act  of  the  giver  a 
bequest,  and  the  nature  of  the  act  is  governed  by  the 
attendant  circumstances  and  not  by  the  mere  assertion 
that  because  a  man  can  equitably  give  away  property 
during  his  life,  he  can  equitably  give  it  away  at  his  death, 
which  is  no  more  reasonable  than  the  statement  that  be- 
cause William  W.  Astor  can  rightfully  burn  his  yesterday's 
newspaper  he  may  also  set  fire  to  every  building  he  owns 
in  New  York  City. 

A  modern  will  does  not  go  into  effect  until  the  testator 
is  dead.  At  the  instant  his  life  passes  away,  his  rights  go 
with  it,  and  there  remains  nothing  that  can  be  justly 
transferred  by  his  power  to  anybody.  Even  if  the  trans- 
fer is  made  before  his  death  and  in  immediate  expectancy 


380  KING   MAMMON. 

of  that  event,  the  act  has  still  the  nature  of  a  transferral 
of  rights  that  belong  to  all  survivors  and  not  to  the  de- 
ceased. Society  should  lease  wealth  for  life  to  the  in- 
dividual and  settle  the  score  at  the  close  of  his  existence. 

The  consideration  of  patents  and  copyrights  is  interest- 
ing in  a  comparison  of  these  forms  of  wealth  with  other 
property,  for  in  these  two  kinds  of  ownership  a  radical 
departure  has  been  made  from  the  rigid  doctrines  of  prop- 
erty. When  a  man  invents  a  new  machine  or  copyrights 
a  book  his  moral  rights  in  the  mental  conception  thus 
evolved  and  in  the  arrangement  of  the  ideas  expressed  is 
certainly,  in  all  fairness  or  justice,  as  complete  as  human 
rights  can  become  to  anything  on  earth.  A  new  thought 
is  of  all  human  products  the  nearest  to  a  genuine 
creation,  and  is  somewhat  different  in  its  apparent  nature 
from  the  mere  physical  transformations  that  are  made  the 
basis  of  property,  although  a  close  analysis  will  show 
that  all  are  identical  in  their  real  nature,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  the  invention  seems  to  be  more  genuinely  a 
production.  Yet  a  man  acquires  a  perpetual  right  or 
monopoly  over  a  piece  of  land,  while  he  can  acquire  only 
a  limited  right  to  the  control  of  the  machine  he  invents, 
for  his  patent  expires  after  a  few  years.  Similarly  a  man 
can  claim  only  a  limited  right  of  controlling  the  use  of  his 
ideas  in  the  form  of  a  book,  but  if  he  chooses  to  devote 
the  same  effort  to  acquiring  a  pork-packing  establishment 
in  Chicago,  or  developing  a  gold  mine  in  California,  no 
restrictions  are  placed  upon  the  perpetuity  of  his  claims. 
Man  and  material  possessions  are,  "now  and  forever,  one 
and  inseparable  ;  "  but  the  same  doctrine  does  not  apply 
to  the  products  of  his  brain. 

Will  some  Spencerian  philosopher  now  explain  which 
method  is  right  and  which  wrong?  It  is  either  just  to 
make  patent-rights  and  copyrights  perpetuities  subject  to 
bequest  and  inheritance,  or  it  is  wrong  to  permit  other 


KING   MAMMON.  381 

kinds  of  wealth  to  be  owned  and  transferred  by  these 
expedients  to  successors.  It  is  not  likely  that  men  of  the 
present  day  will  be  prepared  to  admit  that  the  perpetuity 
of  James  Watts'  claim  to  the  steam-engine,  or  Elias 
Howe's  right  to  the  sewing  machine,  appearing  in  the 
person  of  their  descendants  or  legatees,  would  be  exactly 
an  equitable  method  of  adjusting  human  rights,  so  it  may 
be  that  eventually  they  will  recognize  the  truth  that  no 
form  of  human  privilege  should  have  more  than  a  tem- 
porary existence,  and  that  all  rights  should  terminate  at 
death.  Patents  and  copyrights  are  now  issued  for  the 
period  of  an  average  lifetime,  or  less,  and  are  not  only 
equitable,  but  desirable  in  their  economic  effects,  while  if 
they  were  established  as  perpetuities,  they  would  become 
unbearable  tyranny. 

The  curse  of  perpetuity  hangs  over  all  governmental 
institutions,  and  in  this  way  the  dead  past  is  forever 
binding  the  present.  To  illustrate  this  idea,  we  have  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  It  was  an  agreement 
made  between  the  people  of  thirteen  little  colonies  exist- 
ing more  than  one  hundred  years  ago  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  this  country,  then  about  one-tenth  of  its  present 
size  in  the  area  inhabited  and  containing  a  population  of 
about  three  millions.  Those  people  wrangled  with  one 
another  over  the  exact  nature  of  their  political  agree- 
ment, and  were  actuated  far  more  by  selfish  desires  in 
formulating  the  famous  document  than  by  the  patriotism 
usually  ascribed  to  them.  When  they  had  completed 
that  patchwork  of  concessions  and  compromises,  they 
pronounced  their  work  holy  and  sent  it  down  to  posterity 
with  a  provision  embodied  within  it  that  its  binding  force 
could  only  be  changed  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  the  repre- 
sentation in  Congress  and  ratification  by  the  legislatures 
of  three-fourths  of  the  States.  To-day  there  are  seventy 
millions  or  more  of  people  living  under  that  Constitution, 


382  KING   MAMMON. 

yet  they  cannot  legally  change  it  to  conform  to  their 
desires  except  by  practical  unanimity.  They  are  tied 
politically  and  socially  (so  far  as  tying  can  really  be 
accomplished  by  such  methods)  by  the  absurd  idea  of 
their  predecessors,  that  they  could  make  among  them 
selves  a  bargain  for  all  time  which  would  express  not 
only  their  own  desires,  but  the  desires  of  their  posterity. 
The  result  of  this  original  fallacy  is  now  displayed  by  the 
absurd  condition  of  the  country  in  attempting  the  impo- 
sition of  an  income  tax.  The  people  as  represented  in 
Congress  declared  that  they  wanted  such  a  tax.  The 
Supreme  Court,  by  a  vote  of  five  to  four,  declared  that 
under  their  Constitution  the  people  could  not  levy  such  a 
tax,  and  the  decision  of  one  man  controls  the  course  of 
seventy  millions  of  people  in  regard  to  property  involving 
many  millions  of  dollars.  Meanwhile  the  people  are 
discontented,  but  they  cannot  change  their  Constitution 
nor  levy  income  taxes,  if  they  really  desire  that  form  of 
taxation,  without  the  tedious  process  of  altering  the 
organic  law  bequeathed  to  them,  a  change  which  involves 
the  control  of  three-quarters  of  the  states.  Meanwhile, 
suppose  that  discontent  progresses  till  a  majority  of  the 
people,  or  even  a  large  minority,  becomes  dissatisfied  to 
the  extent  of  revolt.  The  result,  traceable  directly  to  the 
perpetuity  embodied  in  a  "paper  constitution,"  which 
never  did  and  never  will  bind  men  in  any  country  if  they 
find  themselves  wronged,  may  be  found  in  the  horrors  of 
civil  war.  The  people  of  the  United  States  need  to  amend 
their  constitution  by  providing  that  all  future  amend- 
ments may  be  adopted  or  rejected  by  a  direct  vote  of  the 
people  and  submitted  by  a  majority  vote  of  Congress. 
The  author  of  this  book  is  not  an  advocate  of  income 
taxes,  but  the  people  must  govern  themselves  and  not  be 
governed  by  their  ancestors.  Right  or  wrong,  the  major- 
ity of  the  people  in  any  country  will  rule,  and  it  is  better 


KING    MAMMON.  383 

that  they  rule  peaceably  than  by  violence.  If  the  people 
desire  income  taxes  or  any  other  form  of  legislation,  it  is 
suicidal  folly  to  repress  or  obstruct  the  expression  of  the 
popular  will  by  means  of  the  ancient  dicta  of  the  Consti- 
tution, for  that  course  means,  in  the  end,  armed  revolu- 
tion. 


CHAPTER     XVII. 

LOOKING     ON     BOTH     SIDES. 

Spiders  can  spin,  Beavers  can  build  and  show  contrivance ;  the 
Ant  lays  up  an  accumulation  of  capital,  and  has,  for  ought  I  know, 
a  Bank  of  Antland.  If  there  is  no  soul  in  Man  higher  than  all 
that,  did  it  reach  to  sailing  on  the  cloud-rack  and  spinning  sea- 
sand ;  then,  I  say,  Man  is  but  an  animal,  a  more  cunning  kind  of 
brute  ;  he  has  no  soul,  but  only  a  succedaneum  for  salt.  Where- 
upon, seeing  himself  to  be  tridy  of  the  beasts  that  perish,  he  ought  to 
admit  it,  I  think  ; — and  also  straightway  universally  to  kill  him- 
self;  and  so,  in  a  manlike  manner,  at  least,  end,  and  wave  these 
brute-worlds  his  dignified  farewell  /—THOMAS  CARI,YI<E.  • 

IT  is  but  fair,  in  treating  of  the  social  troubles  and  the 
principles  of  heredity  as  applied  to  wealth,  to  consider 
the  objections  that  are  likely  to  be  urged  against  the 
changes  that  have  been  advocated  in  this  volume.  So- 
ciety has  nothing  to  gain  from  blind  and  bitter  partisans, 
no  matter  what  position  they  occupy  in  the  discussions 
now  going  on  in  every  great  nation.  We  do  not  need  to 
engender  bitter  animosities,  but  we  do  need  to  consider 
what  seems  right  and  what  wrong  in  our  new  social 
relations,  and  after  such  consideration  to  firmly  demand 
what  appears  to  be  the  best  for  permanent  good,  for 
otherwise  society  will  inevitably  become  wrecked  and  in- 
.  dividual  welfare  endangered  in  the  general  ruin.  The 
man  who,  in  periods  like  the  present,  maintains  a  purely 
selfish  view  of  his  own  individual  existence,  to  the  extent 


384  KING   MAMMON. 

of  refusing  to  acknowledge  any  duty  to  his  fellow-crea- 
tures, is  wise  only  in  his  own  conceit ;  for  the  penalty  of 
greed  and  tyranny  must,  sooner  or  later,  be  completely 
paid.  All  of  us  need  to  look  on  both  sides  of  the  shield. 
The  most  complete  objection  that  is  urged  against  in- 
terference with  successions  or  any  other  attempt  to  lessen 
centralization  in  wealth  comes  from  the  man  who  con- 
tends that  centralization  is  in  itself  a  desirable  thing  and 
not  the  evil  that  popular  sentiment  imagines  it  to  be. 
Men  who  hold  this  theory  are  intelligent  and  usually  have 
an  accurate  knowledge  of  recent  economic  history, 
whereby  they  are  able  to  show  the  progress  of  our  vast 
industries  from  their  small  beginnings.  They  can  show 
how  the  immense  wealth  aggregated  in  a  single  great 
industrial  establishment  has  vastly  cheapened  production, 
out  of  which  society  receives  in  some  form  the  resulting 
benefits  of  economy.  They  prove  conclusively  that  a 
great  railroad  system  is  cheaper  in  operation  than  many 
smajl  lines  under  separate  ownership,  and  they  show  the 
gain  to  society  in  many  dollars  and  cents.  They  prove 
to  any  candid  man  familiar  with  business  methods  that 
the  great  trusts  and  syndicates  which  now  excite  the 
wrath  of  the  more  superficial  observers  by  their  tremen- 
dous aggregation  of  business,  are  not  bleeding  the  pockets 
of  the  people,  but  are  really  cheapening  production  and 
obtaining  their  power  in  that  way  by  driving  out  weaker 
and  consequently  less  desirable,  because  less  productive, 
competition.  Even  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  from  the 
economical  view  of  these  advocates  of  wealth  centraliza- 
tion, is  a  corporation  comprising  industrial  angels  in  the 
form  of  human  beings.  These  gains  in  economy  are 
admitted.  Some  notorious  rascality  has  been  connected 
with  the  formation  of  trusts,  but  the  greed  and  tyranny 
therein  displayed  are  not  greater,  except  for  the  magni- 
tude of  the  financial  operations,  than  thousands  of  men 


KING   MAMMON.  385 

unheard  of  display  in  minor  business  transactions  of  every- 
day life.  There  is  no  difference  between  the  principles 
that  make  the  trust  and  the  principles  that  govern  the 
transactions  of  a  peanut-stand  at  the  street  corner,  the 
only  distinction  being  in  the  extent  of  the  business  trans- 
acted. It  is  true  that  all  this  aggregation  of  capital  has 
cheapened  production,  increased  wages,  shortened  the 
hours  of  labor,  and  enabled  laborers  who  call  themselves 
paupers  now,  to  live  better  than  princes  could  five  hun- 
dred years  ago. 

Why,  then,  do  you  oppose  wealth  concentration  ?  the 
reader  will  inquire.  Simply  because  mere  wealth  is  not 
all  of  life,  and  because  some  of  man's  aspirations  are 
higher  and  nobler  than  a  perpetual  pursuit  of  the  almighty 
dollar.  If  the  accumulation  of  social  wealth  be  all  that 
men  desire,  their  existing  social  system  is  a  success ;  for 
the  vast  productive  effort  of  modern  society  is  storing  up 
every  year  an  unconsumed  surplus,  from  which  results, 
in  the  industrial  depression,  that  harvest  of  leisure  which 
is  the  only  reward  that  man  can  ever  gain  from  increased 
productive  ability,  even  if  he  succeeds  in  combining 
the  chemical  elements  directly  into  food,  or  in  converting 
the  wave-power  of  the  ocean  into  electrical  energy,  or  in 
immediately  converting  beds  of  stone  into  blocks  of 
bread  and  cheese.  At  the  end  of  every  existence  the 
individual  has  used  a  certain  amount  of  food  and  cloth- 
ing, and  enjoyed  or  not  enjoyed  a  certain  period  of  ces- 
sation from  productive  effort.  That  result  sums  his 
economical  existence.  In  the  period  of  industrial  depres- 
sion, the  rich  obtain  this  cessation  from  productive  effort 
in  the  form  of  stagnated  business  among  the  active,  and 
a  frivolous  leisure  in  "society"  among  the  idle;  while 
the  poor  obtain  it  *in  Coxey  armies,  and  in  searching  the 
country  for  work  that  does  not  need  to  be  done. 

The  otherwise  clear  reasoners  who  admire  the  existing 
25 


386  KING   MAMMON. 

system  are  mammon-worshipers.  Social  existence  to 
them  is  a  matter  of  dollars  and  cents.  If  a  system  suc- 
ceeds in  storing  wealth,  the  ends  and  aims  of  society  are 
secured,  according  to  their  theories,  no  matter  what  the 
attendant  circumstances  may  be.  The  real  reason  why 
uncontrolled  wealth  centralization  is  an  evil,  is  not 
because  the  exceedingly  rich  man  impoverishes  his  neigh- 
bors or  the  people  in  general,  for  no  such  result  occurs  in 
society.  It  is  evident  that  the  millionaire  consumes  but 
little  more  than  the  pauper,  and  that  social  wealth  in  the 
form  of  food  and  clothing  is  ultimately  devoured  or  worn 
by  the  whole  people  without  much  distinction  in  riches. 
The  evil  of  extreme  personal  wealth  is  in  the  possession 
of  power,  for  the  rich  man  may  be,  and  often  is,  a  tyrant. 
It  would  be  cheaper  for  this  nation  to  abolish  its  congress 
and  its  legislatures  in  order  that  President  Cleveland, 
with  a  vastly  increased  salary,  as  dictator  of  the  country, 
might  simply  announce  its  new  laws,  instead  of  continu- 
ing the  present  expensive  and  uneconomical  method  of 
assembling  the  people  to  vote  for  representatives  or  on 
special  propositions  ;  but  in  spite  of  the  immediate  and 
evident  economy,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  people 
will  desire  such  a  change.  It  is  also  not  probable  that 
they  will  continue  to  permit  the  power  of  immense 
wealth  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  successors  who  have 
not  earned  it,  who  have  not  proved  their  ability  to  handle 
it  for  the  real  interests  of  society,  and  who  expect  to 
become  dictators  in  our  midst  without  ever  having  dis- 
played any  of  the  talents  and  principles  that  should 
characterize  a  dictator,  granting  that  in  some  instances  it 
is  necessary  or  beneficial  to  have  one.  The  succession 
to  wealth  is  not  particularly  an  economical  question,  but 
one  involving  the  liberties  of  the  people  and  their  right  to 
control  property  instead  of  permitting  it  to  control  them. 
An  absolute  monarch  in  his  immediate  cost  is  cheaper 


KING   MAMMON.  387 

than  a  republic,  and  it  is  easier  and  simpler  to  permit  his 
eldest  son  to  succeed  him  than  to  incur  the  trouble  and 
expense  of  an  election.  In  a  similar  sense,  Colis  P. 
Huntington,  as  sole  proprietor  of  an  aggregated  rail- 
road system,  combining  every  line  in  the  United  States, 
would  unquestionably  transact  our  railroad  business  more 
expeditiously  and  economically  than  it  is  now  being  con- 
ducted ;  but  do  we  really  desire  to  place  that  much  power 
irrevocably  in  his  hands,  and,  if  we  do,  are  we  also  will- 
ing that  he  shall  name  his  own  successor  to  such  power, 
or  that  some  accidental  person  bearing  the  same  name 
shall  succeed  him  ?  It  is  not  a  question  of  profit  to 
society,  for  we  have  wealth  enough,  but  it  is  a  question 
of  governing  ourselves  or  permitting  the  wealthy  families 
of  the  nation  to  govern  us.  We  must  decide  whether 
man  was  made  for  wealth,  or  wealth  for  man. 

The  man  who  accumulates  a  great  fortune  honestly  is 
a  benefactor  to  society.  Sometimes  he  is  unintentionally 
a  benefactor,  even  though  he  accumulates  dishonestly, 
for  he  is  a  check  on  the  spendthrifts  by  whom  the  world 
would  be  kept  poor.  Mr.  Huntington,  for  instance, 
whether  honest  or  dishonest,  understands  managing  rail- 
roads, and  he  labors  more  faithfully  every  day  than  either 
the  writer  of  this  book  or  most  of  its  readers.  When  he 
reaches  the  end  of  his  existence  and  looks  backward,  he 
will  see  that  he  has  really  labored  for  society,  possibly 
in  spite  of  his  own  inclinations,  and  that  he  has  neither 
consumed  any  considerable  portion  of  his  vast  possessions 
nor  obtained  the  ability  to  carry  them  with  him  into  an- 
other world.  In  one  sense  of  the  word,  he  will  have  been  a 
social  slave  quite  as  much  as  any  other  man.  People  ought 
to  be  willing  that  Mr.  Huntington  shall  be  a  great  railroad 
manager,  for  in  the  end  he  is  their  servant,  though  he  some- 
times makes  himself  temporarily  their  master.  He  is  an 
economical  success,  and  he  is  a  more  efficient  manager  than 


388  KING   MAMMON. 

they  could  select  otherwise  than  by  competition  ;  but  his 
ability  is  no  guarantee  that  his  heir  will  possess  the  same 
qualifications,  or  that  the  person  to  whom  he  may  transfer 
his  power  at  death  may  be  in  any  great  degree  efficient  or 
valuable  to  society  in  that  capacity  or  any  other  occupa- 
tion involving  the  control  of  a  great  fortune.  The  pos- 
sessor of  a  great  fortune  accumulated  by  his  own  efforts 
should  be  regarded  as  the  trustee  of  the  people,  selected 
for  that  position  after  having  proved  his  superior  ability 
to  fill  it  by  the  rigid  tests  of  competition,  and  authorized 
to  hold  it  for  life  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  perceive  any  justice 
or  wisdom  or  even  social  economy  in  the  idea  that  he 
shall  be  permitted  to  transfer  the  trust  to  another  person 
at  his  death,  who  may  be  entirely  incompetent  and  un- 
worthy of  such  public  power.  Whether  the  extreme  ag- 
gregation of  wealth  under  individual  control  is  good  or 
evil  depends  upon  the  view  men  take  of  life.  If  the  sole 
object  of  social  organization  is  to  produce  wealth,  then,  in 
the  name  of  productive  efficiency  and  of  that  wealth-god 
whom  we  all  adore,  let  us  convert  our  nation  into  an 
army  of  serfs  under  a  single  wealth-owner  whose  eco- 
nomic ability  is  proved  to  be  pre-eminent,  and  who  will 
thoroughly  comprehend  how  to  manage  the  useless  sur- 
plus of  society,  even  if  he  do  not  have  the  least  concep- 
tion of  any  other  human  aspiration.  But  if  the  real  object 
of  society  is  to  make  a  happy,  contented  people,  satisfied 
in  busy,  cheerful  efforts  to  improve  their  mental  and  physi- 
cal condition,  having  not  only  work  to  do  but  the  desire 
to  do  it,  hopeful  of  the  future,  grateful  to  whatever  mys- 
terious power  they  believe  controls  their  destinies,  and 
raised  above  mere  brute  existence  by  tolerant  and  kindly 
feelings  toward  one  another,  then  let  us  subordinate  the 
mere  accumulation  and  storing  of  wealth  products,  which 
are  as  worthless  as  the  sands  of  Death  Valley  unless  they 
be  adapted  to  and  used  for  human  consumption,  to  a  more 


KING  MAMMON.  389 

rational  control  and  a  more  equal  division  of  human  effort 
and  opportunity.  Industrial  profits  will  never  compensate 
men  for  the  loss  of  liberty  and  the  destruction  of  self-govern- 
ment. 

Society  in  its  present  condition  may  be  compared  to  a 
train  of  cars  headed  by  a  great  locomotive  in  which  the 
machinery  has  become  disarranged  so  that  the  motive 
power  is  no  longer  under  control.  The  train  is  plunging 
furiously  along  its  roadway,  impelled  by  a  tremendous 
power  and  constantly  increasing  its  speed.  In  the  dis- 
tance, far  ahead  of  the  rushing  train,  the  track  diverges 
into  two  branches.  One  of  these  leads  into  a  great  valley, 
quiet  and  peaceful  in  appearance,  fertile  in  its  wealth 
resources,  and  scarcely  changing  in  its  level  surface  from 
its  beginning  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach.  The  other  road 
winds  in  and  out  among  hills  and  narrow  valleys,  now  as- 
cending to  dizzy  summits,  now  descending  swiftly  into 
some  deep  canon  into  which  the  light  of  heaven  scarcely 
penetrates.  Traversing  this  road  involves  a  journey  diffi- 
cult and  dangerous  at  times,  but  one  characterized  by  con- 
tinual novelty  and  a  variety  of  scenery  that  is  lacking  in 
the  more  uniform  surface  of  the  great  valley.  To  a  por- 
tion of  the  travelers  on  the  moving  train  the  level  country 
appears  to  be  a  paradise,  and  the  alternation  of  hills  and 
valleys  a  hideous  waste.  To  others  among  their  associ- 
ates the  uniform  surface  seems  dreary  and  monotonous, 
while  the  mountainous  region,  with  all  its  difficulties  and 
dangers,  is  to  their  tastes  only  pleasantly  diversified.  Each 
group  disputes  with  the  other  concerning  the  relative  ad- 
vantages of  the  different  regions,  and  each  fears  an  exist- 
ence under  physical  conditions  that  are  detested.  Mean- 
while the  locomotive  increases  its  speed,  freed  from  all 
human  control,  and  the  real  danger  is  not  in  its  future  prog- 
ress into  the  land  of  co-operation  on  the  one  hand,  or 
the  land  of  competition  on  the  other,  but  in  the  increasing 


390  KING  MAMMON. 

momentum  which  may  at  any  moment  hurl  the  train  from 
its  roadbed  and  involve  all  the  contestants  in  the  catas- 
trophe of  social  destruction. 

The  plan  of  subordinating  wealth  succession  to  the  abso- 
lute direction  of  the  people  is  a  means  of  controlling  our 
social  progress  so  that  the  possession  of  wealth  may  be 
regulated  to  some  extent  by  the  community  that  produces 
it.  It  is  the  lever  with  which  we  will  control  our  unruly 
locomotive.  With  the  firm  establishment  of  the  principle 
permitting  a  life  possession  of  wealth  and  nothing  beyond 
that  right,  society  is  prepared  either  to  continue  under  a 
more  rational  competition  than  now  exists  or  to  transform 
itself  gradually  by  the  public  absorption  of  estates,  into 
whatever  additional  forms  of  socialism  may  be  of  real 
benefit,  as  rapidly  as  human  nature  and  its  environment 
are  prepared  for  the  change. 

It  should,  for  instance,  be  evident  to  any  thoughtful 
mind  that  the  process  of  consolidation  among  railroad 
companies  into  the  great  systems  of  the  United  States, 
which  has  been  going  on  steadily,  owing  to  the  natural 
laws  of  competition,  destroying  the  weaker  competitors 
and  aggregating  the  business  under  the  control  of  a  few, 
in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  people  and  contrary  to  the 
original  expectations  of  the  competitors,  will  continue  un- 
til all,  or  nearly  all,  the  railroads  in  the  country  are  prac- 
tically under  one  management.  At  a  recent  session  of 
Congress,  a  bill  passed  the  lower  house  enabling  all  the 
railroad  companies  of  the  United  States  to  form  a  great 
trust,  at  their  own  desire,  making  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment the  trustee,  and  providing  for  the  regulation  of 
fares  and  freights  by  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commis- 
sion.1 If  that  proposition  be  carried  into  effect,  it  may 
form  the  connecting  link  in  the  transition  of  the  railroads 

1  See  "  Steps  toward  Governmental  Control  of  Railroads,"  by  Carroll 
D.  Wright,  in  The  Foriim  for  February,  1895. 


KING  MAMMON.  39! 

from  private  ownership  to  State  Socialism  in  its  applica- 
tion to  this  form  of  property  ;  but  the  great  trust  would  be 
a  very  dangerous  institution  under  our  present  laws  and 
the  condition  of  public  sentiment.  Railroad  regulation  by 
a  commission,  if  its  future  history  follows  the  lines  of  the 
past,  would  convince  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
under  such  a  system  of  transportation,  that  the  railroad 
owners  were  controlling  the  government  instead  of  the 
government  controlling  the  railroads.  With  all  the  rail- 
roads thus  aggregated  in  a  great  combination,  the  rail- 
road employes  would  become  united  in  an  immense  labor 
organization,  against  which  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment as  trustee  would  necessarily  be  turned  in  case  of  a 
gigantic  strike.  Our  national  government  would  thus  be 
placed  in  the  position  of  directly  upholding  a  gigantic  cor- 
poration, and  the  extreme  irritation  that  would  result  from 
a  great  strike  in  which  the  laborers  directly  interested 
would  be  backed  by  millions  of  sympathizers  under  such 
circumstances,  might  precipitate  an  armed  conflict  more 
speedily  than  even  our  greatest  pessimists  expect  such  a 
calamity. 

Sooner  or  later,  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  will 
go  into  the  hands  of  the  people,  as  naturally  and  inevi- 
tably as  water  flows  to  the  sea,  in  spite  of  all  that  can 
be  done  to  prevent  the  change.  The  only  real  question  is 
how  that  change  shall  be  accomplished.  Under  existing 
laws  the  railroads  must  be  bought,  or  in  case  of  a  social 
crisis  they  may  be  confiscated,  as  the  slaves  of  the  Southern 
people  were  confiscated.  Buying  the  railroads  is  no  real 
solution  of  the  problem,  for  the  same  monopoly  of  wealth 
would  still  exist  in  the  form  of  bonds  or  other  possessions, 
and  the  mere  proposition  to  buy  them  is  apparently 
astounding  to  national  financiers.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  will  not  be  confiscated  except  by  the  summary  pro- 
cesses of  armed  revolution.  The  proper  solution  of  such 


392  KING  MAMMON. 

difficulties,  it  would  seem,  lies  in  an  attack  upon  heredity 
in  wealth.  The  ownership  of  railroads  vests  usually  in 
extremely  wealthy  men.  No  matter  how  much  enterprise, 
industry,  ability,  prudence,  or  benevolence  has  been  dis- 
played by  these  men  in  the  accumulation  or  management 
of  their  property,  the  same  desirable  qualities  are  not 
necessarily  or  even  probably  inherent  in  their  successors 
under  the  present  system  of  successions  ;  and  it  cannot  be 
maintained  that  either  the  permanent  interests  of  society, 
or  justice  to  the  individual,  two  things  which  are  always 
identical  in  their  real  nature,  demand  the  continuance  of 
the  imperfect  methods  of  the  past,  which,  although  at  one 
time  adapted  to  the  needs  of  society,  are  no  longer  in 
consonance  with  either  the  spirit  of  free  government 
or  our  present  economical  system.  If  it  is  right  that 
the  people  shall  have  no  voice  in  the  selection  of  their 
great  railroad  kings,  then,  for  the  sake  of  a  desirable  con- 
sistency, let  us  authorize  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  who  now  serve  for  life,  to  bequeath 
their  offices  to  successors  when  they  die,  or,  in  case  they 
fail  to  bequeath  them,  let  us  empower  their  sons  to  suc- 
ceed as  judges. 

Wills  and  inheritance  have  always  been  subject  to  modi- 
fication, and  the  means  of  correcting  the  real  abuses  of 
private  ownership  are  thus  easily  within  reach  of  the  peo- 
ple, who  need  to  attack  the  heredity  of  wealth  power  as 
their  forefathers  of  1776  attacked  the  heredity  of  political 
privileges.  It  should  require  no  proof  to  convince  any 
reasoning  being  that  one  form  of  power  is  as  dangerous 
as  the  other. 

A  common  objection  to  the  destruction  of  wealth  suc- 
cession is  embodied  in  the  plea  of  those  who  urge  that  the 
privilege  of  disposing  absolutely  of  property  at  death  is 
a  stimulus  to  human  effort,  and  that  men  will  refuse 
to  labor  and  accumulate  wealth  if  their  privileges  are 


KING  MAMMON.  393 

restricted,  the  result  being  that  society  would  become  im- 
poverished and  lose  the  immense  advantages  of  cap- 
ital. The  same  objection  was  made  in  England  when  it 
was  proposed  to  abolish  or  restrict  the  privilege  of  entail, 
and  its  fallacy  was  exposed  by  the  conditions  which  have 
succeeded  the  abandonment  of  entail  all  over  Europe. 
Men  now  work  with  more  energy  than  ever  to  accumu- 
late wealth,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  can  no  longer 
dictate  the  use  of  land  for  generations  after  their  decease. 
In  France  the  same  fallacy  is  exposed,  for  the  Code  Na- 
poleon so  restricts  the  right  of  bequest,  by  requiring  almost 
an  equal  succession  among  the  children,  that  the  parent 
frequently  declines  to  make  a  will ;  yet  the  industry  of 
the  French  people  is  not  lessened  by  the  restriction  in 
personal  privilege. '  When  society,  by  the  method  of  dis- 
tribution herein  proposed,  guarantees  that  every  man's 
children,  or  others  having  real  claims  upon  his  posses- 
sions, shall  be  equitably  treated  after  his  death,  he  will 
have  nothing  to  discourage  industrious  effort  in  that  con- 
dition unless  he  is  a  tyrant  at  heart  who  desires  the  privi- 
lege of  dealing  out  wealth  inequitably  when  its  dispo- 
sition can  no  longer  affect  him.  The  whole  idea  of  with- 
drawing a  stimulus  to  industry  by  interfering  with  the 
ultimate  disposition  of  wealth  is  a  fallacy,  however,  when 
it  is  applied  to  a  fortune  of  any  great  value.  The  truth  is, 
that  except  among  comparatively  poorpeoplethe  accumu- 
lators of  wealth  are  not  stimulated  by  any  idea  of  assist- 
ance to  their  descendants,  nor  even  of  real  benefit  to 

1  A  great  historian  after  exposing  and  denouncing  the  greed  and  cor- 
ruption of  the  European  clergy  in  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  centuries, 
and  showing  their  vast  accumulation  of  wealth  in  spite  of  their  celibacy, 
closes  his  comments  with  the  following  words,  illustrating  the  usual  fal- 
lacious belief  that  men  derive  happiness  from  the  results  of  action  rather 
than  from  the  action  itself :  "  Such  rapacity  might  seem  incredible  in 
men  cut  off  from  the  pursuits  of  life  and  the  hope  of  posterity,  if  we  did 
not  behold  every  day  the  unreasonableness  of  avarice  and  the  fervor  of 
professional  attachment" — Hallam's  "  Middle  Ages,"  Chapter  vii. 


394  KING  MAMMON. 

themselves  derived  from  the  possession  of  wealth.  After 
a  moderate  amount  of  wealth  represented  by  a  compara- 
tively few  thousands  of  dollars  is  accumulated,  any  man 
knows  that,  so  far  as  wealth  is  concerned,  his  real  inter- 
ests and  the  interests  of  his  posterity  are  as  well  and  often 
better  secured  by  moderate  means  than  by  the  control 
of  a  great  fortune.  This  is  proved  by  the  restrictions  that 
many  millionaires  throw  about  their  wealth  in  wills,  pur- 
posely to  prevent  the  use  of  money  in  amounts  too  great 
for  the  supposed  welfare  of  their  children.  It  is  a  com- 
mon remark  among  all  classes  that  the  possession  of 
great  wealth,  especially  when  secured  suddenly,  often 
proves  to  be  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing,  and  that  the 
millionaire  can  derive  no  real  benefit  from  his  wealth  after 
he  has  acquired  it.  What,  then,  is  the  real  motive  that 
animates  the  accumulators  of  large  fortunes  ? 

It  is  indicated  in  a  conversation  said  to  have  occurred 
with  Philip  Armour  of  Chicago. *  The  continued  pursuit 
of  wealth  by  men  who  are  already  wealthy,  is  not  due 
to  any  desire  of  making  future  provision,  either  for  them- 
selves or  their  offspring,  but  to  the  fact  that  they  enjoy 


1 "  A  Chicago  journalist  one  time  said  to  Mr.  Armour, '  Why  do  you 
not  retire  ?  You  have  made  far  more  money  than  you  know  what  to  do 
with.  Even  if  you  slept  round  the  clock,  money  would  still  come  in, 
more  money  than  what  you  could  use.  Why  cannot  you  get  out  of  it 
all  and  leave  the  field  to  younger  men  ?  Why  not  give  them  a  chance  ? 
You  overshadow  everything,  monopolize  everything  in  the  place,  and 
we  have  only  one  great  butcher  in  the  place  of  a  thousand  little  ones. 
You  have  made  your  pile,  why  not  clear  out  ? ' 

"  Mr  Armour  listened  patiently, as  he  always  does,  and  answered,  'Be- 
cause I  have  no  other  interest  in  life  but  my  business.  I  do  not  want 
any  more  money  ;  as  you  say,  I  have  more  than  I  want.  I  do  not  love 
the  money  ;  what  I  do  love  is  the  getting  of  it,  the  making  it.  All  these 
years  of  my  life  I  have  put  into  this  work  and  now  it  is  my  life  and  I 
cannot  give  it  up.  What  other  interest  can  you  suggest  to  me  ?  I  do 
not  read,  I  do  not  take  any  part  in  politics,  what  can  I  do  ?  But  in  my 
counting  house  I  am  in  my  element ;  there  I  live,  and  the  struggle  is 
the  very  breath  of  life  to  me.  Besides,"  he  added,  "  I  think  it  is  well 
for  me  to  remain  in  business  in  order  to  set  an  example  to  younger  men 
who  are  coming  up  around  me.'" — WILLIAM  T.  STEAD. 


KING  MAMMON.  395 

the  increase  of  power  and  fame  that  invariably  accom- 
panies the  possession  of  great  wealth,  and  because  they 
would  rather  conduct  their  business  affairs  and  speculations 
than  to  engage  in  any  other  occupation  to  be  found  on 
the  face  of  the  earth.  Heaven  is  to  them  a  field  of  intense 
activity,  and  hell  is  idleness.  If  any  business  man  who 
has  accumulated  a  large  fortune,  will  candidly  analyze 
his  motives  in  continuing  to  do  so,  and  truthfully  express 
his  conclusions,  they  will  be  found  to  correspond  very 
closely  with  Mr.  Armour's  assertions.  The  genuine  cap- 
tains of  industry  pursue  dollars  as  the  sportsman  follows 
game — for  the  pleasure  there  is  in  the  chase  and  capture, 
and  not  for  any  other  supposed  benefits  to  anybody. 
Nearly  all  men  of  this  class  spend  their  lives  in  the 
pleasure  of  wealth  accumulation,  deriving  a  satisfaction 
from  forming  their  plans,  from  putting  them  into  execu- 
tion, and  from  receiving  and  controlling  the  results  ;  but 
beyond  this  pleasure  of  plan  and  acquisition  they  obtain 
little  happiness  from  what  is  generally  termed  the  use  of 
wealth,  in  affording  leisure  and  recreation.  Rest  and 
luxury  as  pleasures  are  to  these  men  incomprehensible. 
Their  happiness  is  in  work  and  action,  and  they  seek  their 
own  form  of  pleasure,  no  matter  what  the  final  results  in 
the  disposal  of  the  property  may  be,  although  they  will 
retain  their  hold  on  it  to  the  last  instant  of  their  existence, 
and  control  it  after  death  if  society  will  permit  them  to  do 
so.  Such  men,  although  often  intending  to  be  the  best 
of  husbands,  fathers,  and  friends,  will  frequently  neglect 
their  wives,  permit  their  children  to  grow  up  strangers  to 
them,  and  omit  all  friendly  association,  merely  because 
they  have  no  time  to  spare  from  the  rush  of  business  ac- 
tivity. They  have  no  more  thought  concerning  the  real 
use  of  their  accumulations  than  enters  the  head  of  the  tame 
magpie  which  fills  its  garret-home  with  all  discoverable 
odds  and  ends  that  can  be  carried  thither,  and,  like  the 


396  KING  MAMMON. 

magpie,  their  happiness  is  derived  from  action  and  not 
from  its  results. 

Other  men  are  not  different  except  in  seeking  different 
occupation.  One  man  undergoes  fearful  dangers  and 
hardships  to  discover  the  north  pole,  regardless  of  what  he 
will  do  with  it ;  another  spends  his  life  and  ultimately 
starves  in  a  garret  daubing  colors  upon  canvas  ;  a  third  sits 
dumb  in  reflection  and  studies  the  intricacy  of  some  mar- 
velous invention  ;  a  fourth  diligently  uses  his  days  and 
nights  in  constructing  some  wonderful  bit  of  poetry  ;  and 
the  fifth  finds  a  charm  that  words  cannot  express  in  col- 
lecting bugs.  Similarly,  the  man  of  business  instincts  de- 
rives a  satisfaction  from  his  pursuits  that  he  can  obtain  in 
no  other  way,  and  so  long  as  he  is  permitted  to  pursue 
that  happiness  and  collect  his  dollars,  he  will  do  so  regard- 
less of  what  is  done  concerning  the  future  disposition  of 
the  product,  as  the  man  who  collects  bugs  is  not  greatly 
concerned  about  the  ultimate  disposition  of  his  cabinet. 
The  idea  of  ultimate  use  or  enjoyment  is  not  a  factor  in 
promoting  the  industry  of  the  money  collector ;  he 
works  because  he  would  be  miserable  if  he  tried  to  enjoy 
his  wealth  by  using  it  in  travel,  luxurious  living,  or  mere 
pleasure-seeking  among  what  he  really  considers  the 
frivolities  of  life.  The  luxurious  use  of  wealth  is  almost 
invariably  the  concomitant  of  an  inherited  privilege. 

It  is  further  urged  by  many  that  all  laws  imposing 
severe  restrictions  on  the  right  of  bequest  would  be 
useless  from  evasions,  as  wealth  would  be  given  away 
before  death.  A  similar  objection  can  be  made  against 
all  laws.  It  is  not  desirable  that  any  changes  whatever 
shall  be  made  in  our  laws  till  a  strong  moral  sentiment 
involving  the  majority  demands  new  principles,  and 
under  our  form  of  government  that  majority  will  have 
to  be  gained  before  any  new  laws  can  be  recorded.  It 
is  true  that  no  law  can  be  enforced  unless  sustained  by  a 


KING  MAMMON.  397 

strong  public  sentiment,  but  it  is  equally  true  that  a 
strong  public  sentiment  can  enforce  any  laws  that  are 
desirable.  The  writing  of  this  book  is  an  effort  to  manu- 
facture public  sentiment  and  not  immediately  to  make 
laws.  When  such  sentiment  is  secured  in  favor  of 
changes,  the  restrictions  will  be  made  as  rapidly  as  the 
people  approve  them,  and  they  will  then  enforce  their 
laws  of  succession  with  no  more  evasion  than  attends 
the  enforcement  of  all  other  laws. 

The  idea  that  the  restriction  of  bequests  could  be 
evaded  by  gifts  is  at  first  thought  plausible,  but  the  diffi- 
culty of  such  evasion  becomes  apparent  on  closer  exam- 
ination. In  the  first  place,  people  are  not  willing  to  de- 
prive themselves  of  the  control  of  property  during  health 
and  give  it  to  successors,  even  if  the  latter  be  their 
children.  The  propositions  are  very  different,  to  con- 
template on  the  one  hand  the  giving  of  what  one  may 
need,  and  on  the  other,  the  bequeathing  at  death  of 
what  one  knows  will  never  be  required.  Deathbed  gifts 
and  other  gifts  are  entirely  different  in  their  nature,  for 
there  is  a  sacrifice  in  the  last  but  not  in  the  first.  Be- 
sides the  fact  that  no  human  being  is  usually  willing  to 
abandon  his  control  over  his  own  possessions  unneces- 
sarily, the  moment  of  death  is  uncertain.  Children  fre- 
quently die  before  their  parents.  If  wealth  be  given  to 
a  child  and  it  die  before  the  parent,  all  surplus  value 
beyond  the  limit  of  inheritable  wealth  would  imme- 
diately revert  to  the  state  and  be  lost  to  the  giver.  On 
account  of  these  conditions,  gifts  would  not  prevail 
more  than  at  present  except  in  case  of  dangerous  illness. 
If  then  the  validity  of  gifts  were  made  to  depend  upon 
the  apparent  expectancy  of  the  giver,  and  if  in  all  cases 
where  an  effort  to  defeat  the  will  of  the  people  could  be 
shown  the  entire  estate  reverted  to  public  ownership, 
there  would  be  few  attempts  to  evade  the  law  under 


39$  KING   MAMMON. 

such  penalty,  when  supported  by  a  strong  public  senti- 
ment. 

The  emotional  person  in  whom  parental  affection  pre- 
dominates over  other  feelings,  may,  perhaps,  regard  the 
advocate  of  any  serious  restriction  upon  the  succession 
of  children  as  a  social  monster  who  would  deprive 
widows  and  orphans  of  the  only  protection  left  to  them 
after  the  death  of  their  natural  protector,  and  who,  by 
permitting  wealth  to  escheat  to  the  state,  would  place  it 
in  the  possession  of  those  who  cared  nothing  whatever 
for  the  dead  man.  To  many  kind-hearted  people  there 
seems  something  outrageously  harsh  to  the  children  in 
any  plans  restricting  inheritance.  The  best  answer  to 
these  ideas  is  an  imaginary  case. 

A  certain  family  comprises  the  husband  and  wife,  pos- 
sessing community  property  worth  $1,000,000,  and  hav- 
ing three  children,  two  sons  and  a  daughter.  Under 
one  form  of  existing  laws,  the  husband  at  death  may 
bequeath  $500,000,  and  his  wife  retain  her  one-half  of 
the  communal  property.  If  he  die  intestate,  the  wife 
will  retain  her  communal  half,  and  will  inherit,  in  addition 
to  that  portion,  one-third  of  her  deceased  husband's  interest, 
the  other  two-thirds  being  divided  equally  among  the 
children.  The  head  of  the  family  is  a  choleric  gentle- 
man, who  in  old  age  has  become  exceedingly  irascible. 
His  youngest  son  is  a  "chip  from  the  old  block,"  and 
resents  domineering  manners.  After  a  sharp  conflict  with 
parental  authority  and  some  disrespectful  language  ad- 
dressed to  his  sire,  this  son  leaves  home  at  the  age  of 
twenty  years  and  disappears.  Soon  after  this  occurrence, 
the  father  falls  sick,  makes  his  will,  and  dies.  The  doc- 
ument disinherits  the  offending  son,  and  bequeaths  $500,- 
ooo  to  his  elder  brother.  The  daughter  receives  merely  the 
dying  man's  blessing  and  a  few  keepsakes,  for  it  is  under- 
stood that  she  is  to  become  her  mother's  legatee.  The 


KING   MAMMON.  399 

mother,  hearing  nothing  from  her  runaway  son,  makes  a 
will  entirely  in  her  daughter's  favor,  but  the  latter,  falling 
in  love  with  a  young  man,  as  her  mother  did  before  her, 
marries  him  against  the  maternal  wishes.  The  result 
is  a  hasty  change  of  the  will  in  favor  of  the  elder  son, 
a  sudden  death,  and  the  absolute  disinheritance  of  two 
children,  whose  worst  faults  were  those  of  being  ex- 
tremely self-willed,  like  their  progenitors.  We  will  not 
trace  the  case  any  farther  to  see  whether  the  disinher- 
ited son  and  daughter  contested  the  will ;  to  ascertain 
whether  or  not  they  proved  that  both  of  the  parents  were 
insane  or  subject  to  undue  influence  ;  to  discover  how 
many  attorneys  were  employed  in  the  trial  ;  nor  even  to 
calculate  what  small  fraction  of  the  estate  was  left  after 
the  lawyers  collected  their  fees  and  paid  the  expenses. 
It  is  sufficient  to  note  that  the  whole  condition  of  modern 
will  contests  is  one  of  absurdity. 

There  are  numberless  cases  approaching  more  or  less 
closely  in  their  circumstances  this  supposed  instance. 
Between  heirs  and  ancestor  there  is  necessarily  a  conflict 
of  interest.  If  the  succession  is  established  in  a  fixed  line, 
and  bequests  are  abolished,  heirs  become  undutiful.  If 
the  power  of  making  bequests  is  absolute,  parents  become 
tyrannical.  All  laws  hitherto  adopted  have  approached 
one  or  the  other  of  these  extremes,  and  the  only  equitable 
course  is  to  adjudicate  between  the  conflicting  interests, 
exactly  as  if  no  relationship  existed,  and  to  determine 
the  rights  to  property  by  independent  and  disinterested 
decisions,  which  is  the  method  that  is  herein  proposed. 
This  method  of  providing  for  successions  is  also  con- 
nected with  the  restriction  of  fortunes  that  may  be 
acquired  by  descent.  Suppose,  for  instance,  that  a  law 
abolishing  bequests  and  limiting  inheritance,  restricts 
the  total  amount  of  wealth  that  can  be  inherited  from  a 
single  decedent  to  $300,000,  and  also  restricts  the  amount 


400  KING   MAMMON. 

inheritable  by  a  single  person  to  $200,000.  Such  a  law 
applied  to  the  preceding  case,  would,  in  the  first  place, 
prevent  the  father  from  arbitrarily  disinheriting  his  son. 
All  he  could  do  at  death  would  be  to  file  his  testimony 
in  relation  to  the  estate,  and  recommend,  if  he  desired, 
that  a  distinction  should  be  made  between  the  son  who 
remained  at  home  and  the  one  who  went  away.  Perhaps 
he  might  desire  that,  of  the  $300,000  of  inheritable  wealth, 
the  son  at  home  should  receive  $200,000,  and  the  daughter 
$100,000  ;  but  if,  on  hearing  further  testimony,  the  court 
were  convinced  that  these  desires  of  the  father  were  unjust, 
it  would  peremptorily  order  the  estate  distributed  in  an- 
other way,  either  making  an  equal  division  among  the 
children,  or  apportioning  it,  for  example,  by  giving  the 
elder  son  $150,000,  the  daughter  $100,000,  and  the 
younger  son  $50,000.  This  personal  distribution  of  the  in- 
heritable wealth  having  been  made,  the  surplus  of  $200,- 
ooo  from  the  father's  estate  would  go  into  the  public  treas- 
uries. On  the  death  of  the  mother,  the  same  process  would 
be  repeated.  There  could  be  no  arbitrary  or  unreasonable 
disinheritance,  but  on  the  other  hand  any  serious  neglect 
of  filial  duty,  or  failure  to  assist  in  family  wealth-produc- 
tion, would  subject  the  child  to  the  just  penalty  of  loss  in 
the  inheritable  portion  of  the  estate.  Ordinarily  the  dying 
statement  of  the  parent  would  be  regarded  as  the  best 
evidence,  but  if  heirs  appealed  from  its  statements,  it 
would  not  then  be  necessary,  as  now,  to  make  a  sham 
contest  on  the  absurd  grounds  of  insanity  and  undue 
influence,  auction  which  is  even  now  well  established  in 
the  courts,  and  which  is  transforming  the  whole  nature  of 
probate  decisions.  By  varying  the  amount  of  inheritable 
wealth,  unearned  fortunes  could  be  liberally  or  closely 
limited,  and  held  entirely  within  the  power  of  the  people, 
according  to  their  needs  from  time  to  time.  Under  such 
a  law,  there  would  be  no  injustice  to  the  heirs  of  wealthy 


KING   MAMMON.  4<DI 

parents,  for  they  would  receive  far  more  wealth  than  they 
usually  earn,  even  if  the  inheritance  were  limited  very 
closely  ;  and  in  the  distribution  of  property  involved  in 
small  estates  among  the  families  of  the  great  body  of  the 
people,  there  would  be  no  real  change  from  the  present 
laws,  except  that  the  decree  of  a  court  after  the  hearing 
of  testimony  would  supersede  the  declarations  of  the  will 
and  the  present  decrees  based  upon  it. 

Will  any  candid  reader  after  comparing  the  two  systems 
of  distribution  here  described  maintain  that  the  restriction 
of  inheritance  involves  injustice  to  successors?  Is  not 
that  restriction,  instead  of  injustice,  a  check  upon  the 
tyrannical  power  of  the  dying  man  ;  a  check  upon  the 
unreasonable  expectations  of  heirs  to  receive  great  fortunes 
without  producing  them  ;  a  check  upon  the  neglect  of 
parents  by  their  offspring;  and,  finally,  a  check  upon 
that  strong  tendency  toward  the  development  of  an  aris- 
tocracy that  is  now  discoverable  in  this  country  ? 

If  we  are  to  express  sympathy  for  disinherited  children, 
let  us  remember  the  thousands  and  the  millions  who 
come  into  the  world,  inheriting  nothing  but  rags  and 
poverty — sometimes  not  even  a  name.  They  are  not 
willful  intruders  upon  our  domains,  for  no  desires  of  their 
own  placed  them  on  earth,  to  harass  by  their  hungry 
cries,  or  anger  by  their  bitter  threats,  its  more  fortunate 
occupants.  What  shall  we  do  with  them  ?  Humanity  is 
not  willing  to  follow  Dean  Swift's  advice  and  serve  roast 
baby  at  the  banquets  of  the  privileged  class,  as  the  most 
economical  solution  of  the  difficulty,  but  we  can  only 
take  our  choice  between  a  few  methods  of  procedure.  We 
can  destroy  the  outcasts  ;  we  can  make  slaves  of  them  ; 
we  can  support  them  in  idleness  as  beggars  tramping 
from  door  to  door  ;  or  we  can  do  right  and  afford  them  a 
fair  opportunity  to  maintain  their  own  existence  by  their 
own  labor.  It  is  not  charity,  but  merely  justice  to  de- 
26 


402  KING   MAMMON. 

clare  this  principle.  As  human  beings,  and  not  mere 
brutes,  we  have  no  moral  right  to  monopolize  the  oppor- 
tunities of  earth  as  a  home,  while  other  men  suffer  amidst 
plenty  in  the  hands  of  their  associates  because  they  are 
debarred  from  the  privilege  of  earning  their  own  living. 
^Esop's  fable  of  the  "Dog  in  the  Manger"  is  a  story  that 
the  disinherited  are  reading  to  us  every  day,  for  the  wealth 
of  society  is  not  consumed,  and  we  can  neither  produce 
more  ourselves,  nor  will  we  let  other  men  produce  it  for 
their  own  consumption. 

The  solution  of  the  land  question  would  be  embodied 
in  the  control  of  inheritance,  for,  at  the  death  of  every 
owner,  all  lands  in  his  possession  would  have  to  pass 
again  through  the  hands  of  the  public  for  redistribution 
instead  of  being  tied  up  as  now,  under  a  perpetual  mo- 
nopoly. All  titles  to  land  should  date  absolutely  from  the 
last  decree  of  the  Court  making  a  distribution  at  the  death 
of  the  owner,  and  the  destruction  of  the  ancient  principle 
of  heredity  in  occupancy  would,  in  the  future,  prevent 
such  absurd  doctrines  of  property  as  are  involved  in  the 
famous  lawsuit  of  Myra  Clark  Gaines  against  the  city  of 
New  Orleans,  in  the  contest  brought  by  the  heirs  of 
Anneke  Jans  to  recover  the  ground  covered  by  Trinity 
Church,  and  in  the  French  Spoliation  claims,  under  which 
the  descendants  of  people  who  lived  two  generations  in 
the  past  claim  damages  of  their  associates  in  the  present, 
because  their  ancestors  were  presumably  injured  by  our 
ancestors.  The  records  of  land  titles,  under  such  a 
change,  would  become  useless  in  a  legal  sense  after  the 
death  of  every  owner  and  the  distribution  of  the  property, 
for  the  new  title  by  the  authority  of  the  whole  people  in 
existence  in  the  nation  would  rightfully  supersede  all  the 
decrees  of  dead  men,  and  become  the  only  foundation 
for  a  man's  claim  to  possessions  not  immediately  derived 
from  his  own  exertions. 


KING   MAMMON.  403 

The  destruction  of  aristocracy  is  another  great  benefit 
that  would  unquestionably  arise  from  the  proposed  meas- 
ures. It  has  already  been  indicated  that  inherited  wealth 
is  the  cause  of  the  formation  in  society  of  a  small  privi- 
leged class,  whose  members  look  down-  with  contempt 
upon  the  herds  of  plebeians  surrounding  them,  and  who 
imagine  that  in  the  mysterious  future  a  special  heaven 
is  set  apart  for  people  of  their  ancestry,  education,  and 
culture. 

Wealth  aristocracy  is  really  the  only  kind  of  aristocracy 
that  ever  existed  in  the  world.  Hallam  explained  its 
development  when  he  wrote  : 

"But  the  essential  distinction  of  ranks  in  France,  per- 
haps also  in  Spain  and  Lornbardy,  was  founded  upon  the 
possession  of  land,  or  upon  civil  employment.  The  aris- 
tocracy of  wealth  preceded  that  of  birth,  which  indeed  is 
still  chiefly  dependent  upon  the  other  for  its  importance. 
A  Frank  of  large  estate  was  styled  a  noble  ;  if  he  wasted 
or  was  despoiled  of  his  wealth,  his  descendants  fell  into 
the  mass  of  the  people,  and  the  new  possessor  became 
noble  in  his  stead.  In  these  early  ages,  property  did  not 
very  frequently  change  hands  and  desert  the  families 
who  had  long  possessed  it.  They  were  noble  by  descent, 
therefore,  because  they  were  rich  by  the  same  means. 
Wealth  gave  them  power,  and  power  gave  them  pre-emi- 
nence. .  .  .  The  possessors  of  beneficiary  estates  were 
usually  the  richest  and  most  conspicuous  individuals  in 
the  estate.  Their  sons  now  came  to  inherit  this  emi- 
nence ;  and  as  fiefs  were  either  inalienable,  or  at  least  not 
very  frequently  alienated,  rich  families  were  kept  long  in 
sight ;  and,  whether  engaged  in  public  affairs,  or  living 
with  magnificence  and  hospitality  at  home,  naturally 
drew  to  themselves  popular  estimation." 

Sir  Henry  S.  Maine  also  pertinently  alludes  to  the  origin 
of  aristocracies  in  the  following  language,  referring  to 
the  ancient  Celts  :  * 

"Whatever  else  a  chief  is,  he  is  before  all  things  a  rich 


404  KING   MAMMON. 

man,  not,  however,  rich,  as  popular  associates  would 
lead  us  to  anticipate,  in  land,  but  in  live  stock — in 
flocks  and  herds,  and  before  all  things  in  oxen.  In  the 
later  Greek  literature  we  find  pride  of  birth  identified 
with  pride  in  seven  wealthy  ancestors  in  succession. 
You  are  well  aware  how  rapidly  and  completely  the  aris- 
tocracy of  wealth  assimilated  itself  in  the  Roman  state  to 
the  aristocracy  of  blood.  In  ancient  Ireland,  Bo-Aire 
was  literally  the  'cow  nobleman/  and  he  became  an 
aristocrat  after  getting  rich  by  raising  cattle." 

Somewhere  in  his  famous  work  on  American  institutions, 
DeTocqueville  alluded  to  the  hatred  with  which  our  people 
would  regard  the  formation  of  an  aristocracy.  The  time 
has  now  come  in  which  they  will  have  to  choose  between 
the  continuance  of  an  aristocracy  in  their  midst  and  the 
destruction  of  unlimited  succession  to  wealth,  which  is 
the  cause  of  that  aristocracy.  It  is  absurd  to  speak  of  aris- 
tocracy as  though  it  were  merely  a  thing  of  the  future, 
for  it  is  already  here  except  in  name.  Its  members  do 
not  assume  titles,  but  titles  do  not  constitute  an  aristocracy, 
for  it  is  merely  a  privileged  class  based  upon  the  succes- 
sion to  unearned  wealth  and  retaining  the  power  that 
inevitably  accompanies  that  possession.  Its  political 
and  social  privileges  are  secured  indirectly  instead  of 
being  formulated  in  our  laws,  for  wealth  is  the  only  basis 
that  any  aristocracy  ever  had,  the  poverty-stricken  noble- 
man of  Europe  to-day  being  an  insignificant  creature  fit 
only  to  marry  an  American  heiress.  Viewed  from  any 
standpoint,  moral,  political,  or  economical,  the  existence 
of  wealth-heredity  is  a  curse.  It  debauches  the  men  and 
women  of  its  own  class  with  idle  luxury  and  false  ideas 
of  life.  It  embitters  the  poor  by  contrasts  with  their  own 
condition  and  the  perpetual  spectacle  of  the  successors 
to  wealth  obtaining  something  ^for  nothing,  and  then 
demanding  a  different  morality  for  other  human  beings. 
It  fastens  upon  the  community  a  swarm  of  parasites  who 


KING   MAMMON.  405 

in  their  social  inanities  and  tawdry  shams  of  existence 
are  a  greater  nuisance  than  the  equally  worthless  tramps 
that  afflict  the  lower  portions  of  the  social  scale.  By 
luxurious  existence,  as  an  illustrative  instance,  these  heirs 
compel  some  human  creature  or  creatures  to  labor  for 
two  thousand  days  making  a  piano  stool,  when  a  more 
just  distribution  of  the  wealth  of  society  would  have  given 
the  workmen  leisure  to  construct  a  large  number  of 
cheaper  piano  stools  for  themselves.  Aristocracy  is  de- 
cay in  the  heart  of  society,  and  ultimately  it  weakens  the 
whole  structure  or  permeates  it  with  the  nasty  rottenness 
discoverable  in  England  among  the  idle  sons  of  that  no- 
toriously profligate  class  of  privileged  heirs.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  same  things  in  our  own  country,  where  those 
people  who  habitually  mistake  forms  for  realities,  have 
believed  that  all  patriotic  and  wise  legislation  was  com- 
pleted by  the  adoption  of  our  Constitution,  is  inevitably 
leading  us  to  that  condition  described  by  Carlyle  in  his 
sorrowful,  scornful  words  : 

"We  have  an  aristocracy  of  landed  wealth  and  com- 
mercial wealth,  in  whose  hands  lies  the  law-making  and 
the  law-administering ;  an  aristocracy,  rich,  powerful, 
long  secure  in  its  place.  .  .  .  Mammonism,  as  we  have 
said,  at  least  works  well ;  this  goes  idle.  Mammon- 
ism  has  seized  some  portion  of  the  message  of  Nature 
to  man  ;  and  seizing  that  and  following  it,  will  seize 
and  appropriate  more  and  more  of  Nature's  message. 
But  Dilettantism  has  missed  it  wholly,  ...  A  High  Class 
without  duties  to  do  is  like  a  tree  planted  on  precipices  ; 
from  the  roots  of  which  all  the  earth  has  been  crumbling. 
Nature  owns  no  man  who  is  not  a  martyr  withal.  Is 
there  a  man  who  pretends  to  live  luxuriously  housed  up  ; 
screened  from  all  work,  want,  danger,  hardships,  the 
victory  over  which  is  what  we  name  work  ; — he  himself 
to  sit  serene,  amid  down-bolsters  and  appliances,  and 
have  all  his  work  and  battling  done  by  other  men  ?  And 
such  man  calls  himself  a  noble-man  ?  His  fathers  worked 


406  KING   MAMMON. 

for  him,  he  says  ;  or  successfully  gambled  for  him  :  here 
he  sits  ;  professes  not  in  sorrow  but  in  pride,  that  he  and  his 
have  done  no  work  time  out  of  mind.  It  is  the  law  of  the 
land,  and  it  is  thought  to  be  the  law  of  the  universe,  that 
he,  alone  of  recorded  men,  shall  have  no  task  laid  on  him, 
except  that  of  eating  his  cooked  victuals  and  not  flinging 
himself  out  of  the  window.  Once  more  I  will  say,  there 
was  no  stranger  spectacle  ever  shown  under  this  Sun." 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  RIGHT  TO  EARN  A    LIVING. 

On  the  other  hand  be  this  conceded  :  Where  thou  findest  a  Lie  that  Is 
oppressing  thee,  extinguish  it.  Lies  exist  there  only  to  be  extinguished  ; 
they  wait  and  cry  earnestly  for  extinction.  Think  -well,  meanwhile,  In 
what  spirit  thou  wilt  do  it:  not  with  hatred,  with  headlong,  selfish  violence  ; 
but  in  cleanness  of  heart,  with  holy  zeal,  gently,  almost  with  pity .  Thou 
wouldst  not  replace  such  extinct  Lie  by  a  new  Lie,  which  a  new  Injustice 
of  thy  own  were  ;  the  parent  of  still  other  Lies  ?  IVliereby  the  latter  end 
of  that  biislness  were  worse  than  the  beginning, — THOMAS  CARLYLE. 

HAVING  thus  described  some  of  the  social  benefits  that 
may  be  expected  from  the  discontinuance  of  heredity  in 
its  application  to  wealth,  a  fair  consideration  of  the  subject 
demands  that  this  treatise  shall  also  discuss  some  of  the 
great  evils  of  the  present  that  it  will  not  affect.  In  the 
first  place,  the  inevitable  penalties  that  are  inflicted  upon 
all  men  by  their  own  ignorance  can  never  be  avoided 
except  by  greater  individual  wisdom.  It  needs  no  argu- 
ments to  show  that  innumerable  men  are  lazy,  vicious, 
improvident,  and  incompetent  in  the  performance  of  their 
life-labor,  no  matter  whether  they  begin  it  poor  or  rich. 
The  unfairness  often  embodied  in  the  discussion  of  these 
features  of  human  effort  exists  in  the  fact  that  one  class 
of  writers  habitually  describe  the  idleness  and  profligacy 
of  the  rich,  while  the  opposing  class  persistently  direct 


KING  MAMMON.  407 

attention  to  the  improvidence  or  indolence  of  the  poor, 
each  ignoring  the  truth  that  is  embodied  in  the  state- 
ments of  the  other.  Devils  cannot  be  suddenly  trans- 
formed into  angels  by  any  process  known  to  human  in- 
genuity, and  the  expectations  of  many  reformers  that  great 
immediate  changes  in  the  nature  of  society  can  be  effected 
by  alterations  in  its  institutions,  which  are  only  the  out- 
ward expression  of  the  inner  man,  will  inevitably  be 
doomed  to  disappointment.  Notwithstanding  this  fact, 
however,  the  inner  man  continually  changes  while  his 
social  institutions  remain  established  as  they  were  by  men 
of  different  morality,  thoughts,  and  feelings  in  the  past. 
Man  outgrows  his  institutions,  especially  his  laws,  and 
from  this  fact  and  not  from  the  expectation  of  radically 
improving  the  nature  of  society,  are  the  changes  proposed 
which  are  herein  advocated.  The  social  discontent  is  a 
dial  revealing  to  any  intelligent  observer  that  the  hands 
of  our  great  national  timepiece  are  pointing  at  twelve 
while  the  bell  strikes  ten,  and  the  machinery  needs  change 
and  regulation.  Our  social  institutions  are  not  in  accord 
with  the  new  sentiments  of  the  people  and  the  new  indus- 
trial conditions,  and  until  they  correspond  with  the  present 
forms  of  public  thought,  there  will  be  trouble.  After 
they  are  made  to  agree  with  that  thought,  the  moral  tone 
of  society  will  not  be  really  much  better  on  account  of 
its  change  in  the  laws,  for  the  real  improvement  is  already 
accomplished  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people  ;  but 
the  adoption  of  laws  in  accord  with  public  sentiment  will 
again  bring  general  satisfaction  till  men  once  more  pro- 
gress beyond  the  institutions  that  have  been  adopted,  and 
consider  wrong  what  was  formerly  believed  to  be  right. 

No  changes  are  here  advocated  with  the  expectation  that 
they  will  make  poor  men  industrious,  temperate,  and 
provident ;  or  that  they  will  make  of  rich  men  those  per- 
fect human  beings,  who  should  always  be  invested  with 


408  KING   MAMMON. 

power  over  their  fellow-creatures,  when  that  power 
must  be  exercised.  It  is  easy  to  depict  folly  and  vice  in 
half-brutal  human  nature,  but  it  is  nobler  to  encourage 
the  aspirations  of  that  nature  to  something  better  and 
purer  than  its  present  condition.  We  do  not  need  to 
blame  the  rich  for  the  condition  of  the  poor,  nor  falsely 
attribute  all  the  sufferings  of  the  unfortunate  to  their  own 
individual  acts.  Really  beneficial  changes  will  improve 
all  classes  in  their  social  relations,  but  let  not  the  Mammon- 
worshiper  suppose  that  social  benefit  is  to  be  measured 
by  money  alone.  It  is  to  be  found  in  health,  peace,  and 
brotherly  regard  for  our  associates  ;  in  happy  industry  and 
the  absence  of  a  bitter  hatred  between  distinct  classes ; 
in  freedom  from  our  inward  burning  in  the  presence 
of  injustice,  and  from  the  haunting  fear  that  our  associates 
may  at  any  moment  be  converted  into  destructive  enemies. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  how  all  men  shall  become  rich. 
They  do  not  need  to  become  rich,  and  a  great  nation 
composed  exclusively  of  rich  men  would  be  no  happier 
than  the  present  people,  even  if  its  existence  were  possible. 
We  have  too  much  talking  and  writing  of  money  and 
wealth,  and  too  little  consideration  of  human  rights,  and 
opportunities,  and  liberty,  and  happiness. 

When  we  view  the  social  question  as  one  not  giving 
the  poor  man  wealth,  but  permitting  him  the  right  of  an 
opportunity  to  earn  wealth,  there  will  be  less  denunciation 
of  robbing  the  rich  to  divide  wealth  among  the  poor. 
When  we  judge  the  condition  of  those  possessing  extreme 
wealth  by  the  standard  of  the  owners'  personal  exertions 
and  efforts,  as  we  do  the  condition  of  the  poor  man,  it 
will  be  discovered  that  abolishing  wealth  heredity  robs  no 
human  being  of  anything  whatever.  The  object  that  has 
been  kept  in  view  in  preparing  this  consideration  of  the 
social  question,  is  not  the  advocacy  of  imaginary  pana- 
ceas, but  the  concentration  of  public  thought  upon  those 


KING   MAMMON.  409 

features  of  our  social  system  which  belong  to  the  decay- 
ing work  of  the  past,  and  which  are  not  in  consonance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  present.  It  is  an  effort  to  divert 
public  attention  in  this  country  from  the  fallacious  ideas 
of  securing  real  progress  by  worshiping  a  Silver  God 
in  the  place  of  a  Gold  God,  or  hailing  either  Free  Trade  or 
Tariff  as  the  Redeemer  of  mankind.  No  deliverance  from 
danger  can  be  obtained  by  humble  reverence  to  Mam- 
mon in  any  form. 

The  changes  in  the  principles  of  inheritance  that  have 
been  proposed  would  only  correct  evil  tendencies  at  one 
end  of  the  social  scale  by  destroying  the  power  and  cor- 
ruptive  influence  of  great  bodies  of  unearned  wealth  in 
the  hands  of  incompetent  and  irresponsible  possessors, 
who  disturb  by  their  existence  in  that  capacity  the  equi- 
librium of  the  whole  social  structure.  The  proletarian, 
however,  the  man  who  has  neither  wealth  nor  employ- 
ment, and  who  knows  not  where  to  find  them,  will  not 
find  his  condition  improved  by  the  mere  destruction  of 
unearned  fortunes  ;  for,  if  the  earth  be  completely  con- 
trolled under  private  ownership,  it  matters  little  to  the  man 
who  has  nothing  and  no  place  to  lay  his  head,  whether 
the  world  he  inhabits  be  in  the  possession  of  one  man  or 
one  million  men,  except,  perhaps,  that  the  first  condition 
might  seem  preferable,  because  he  could  then  fight  on  an 
equal  footing  for  a  right  of  use.  In  the  second  case,  pre- 
sented in  the  existing  condition  of  society,  he  is  helpless, 
for  he  cannot  fight  the  many,  even  if  the  alternative  be 
starvation.  What,  then,  shall  be  done  for  the  man  for 
whom  society  affords  no  labor  in  return  for  wages  ;  no 
labor  as  an  absolute  slave  in  return  for  his  living  ;  nor 
even  an  opportunity  to  labor  for  himself  and  to  maintain 
his  own  existence  ?  With  competition  as  the  directing 
principle  of  our  social  existence,  it  has  been  shown,  and 
the  history  of  this  century  apparently  proves,  that  indus- 


410  KING  MAMMON. 

trial  depressions  are  absolutely  inevitable,  and  that  aggre- 
gated man  can  no  more  prevent  the  cessation  of  activity 
that  results  from  an  over-production  than  individual  man 
can  prevent  it  under  the  same  circumstances,  and  no, 
more  than  he  can  prevent  the  loss  of  appetite  when  he 
eats,  or  the  sense  of  fatigue  when  he  labors.  No  laws, 
whatever  they  may  accomplish  in  other  respects,  can 
prevent  the  industrial  depression  so  long  as  the  competi- 
tive system  is  maintained,  and  so  long  as  society  produces 
more  than  it  consumes,  for  the  depression  is  essentially 
the  condition  of  a  man  who  has  made  five  pairs  of  boots 
for  his  own  use, and  who  objects  to  making  more  until  he 
needs  them. 

A  complete  socialism  would  evidently  remove  all  the 
objectionable  features  of  this  period  of  inactivity,  and  trans- 
form it  from  a  curse  into  a  blessing,  by  the  distribution  of 
leisure ;  but  complete  socialism  is  not  for  the  people  who 
now  inhabit  the  United  States,  although  faith  in  the 
progress  of  human  nature  will  indicate  that  it  may  be  for 
their  remote  descendants.  All  history  proves  that  the 
genuine  socialistic  feeling  has  been  a  slow  growth  from 
the  early  brutis~h  life  of  the  human  race — a  growth  which 
is  going  on  now,  and  which  will  probably  continue  into 
the  future,  so  that  our  more  humane  successors,  if  no 
catastrophes  occur,  or  if  the  ascending  progress  be  not 
arrested,  may  be  able  to  substitute  the  principle  of  assist- 
ing one  another  in  all  things,  for  the  good  old  savage 
doctrine  of  fighting  everything  that  is  different  from  our- 
selves, which  we  still  believe  in  and  practice  to  a  consid- 
erable extent.  It  is  possible  that  more  than  half  the 
journey  -to  a  nearly  general  and  practicable  socialism, 
measuring  time  from  the  earliest  records  of  written  his- 
tory, has  already  been  accomplished  by  the  civilized 
nations  ;  for  the  savage  spirit  of  warfare  is  disappearing, 
and  the  equally  savage  spirit  that  delights  in  the  competi- 


KING   MAMMON.  41  I 

tive  industrial  struggle  will  also  disappear  if  the  race 
continues  upward.  Enthusiasts  overrate  the  extent  of 
these  changes,  however,  and  by  many  the  socialistic  era 
is  seen  near  at  hand,  in  spite  of  the  ignorance,  the  selfish- 
ness, the  envy,  and  the  greed  which  any  observer  not 
endowed  with  the  socialist's  faith  in  weak  human  nature 
can  observe  on  every  hand,  even  without  striving  to 
uncover  either  his  neighbor's  faults  or  his  own.  All  these 
rapacious  semi-savages  of  the  present  must  be  transformed 
by  the  progress  of  new  generations  into  animals  more 
genuinely  humane  and  reasonable,  into  creatures  more 
brotherly  and  tolerant,  before  the  ethics  of  a  real  socialism 
will  be  so  generally  acknowledged  as  to  make  universal 
co-operation  among  the  people  either  acceptable  or 
feasible. 

Possibly  we  might  adopt  socialistic  forms,  as  Mexico 
has  adopted  a  republican  form  of  government;  but  it 
would  be  a  sham  socialism,  just  as  Mexico's  government 
is  a  sham  republic — in  its  real  nature  a  military  despo- 
tism corresponding  to  the  institutions  of  Europe  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  mere  existence  in  this  nation  of  two 
ancient  clans  at  the  present  time,  under  the  names  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  American  Protective 
Association,  with  all  the  old  clan  feelings  of  intolerance 
and  opposition  against  one  not  of  the  same  tribe,  ought 
to  be  a  sufficient  indication  that  the  people  of  the  present 
have  still  far  to  travel  in  their  moral  progress  before 
reaching  a  fraternal  future.  The  real  nature  of  this  antag- 
onism is  not  at  first  perceived,  and  savage  clan  hostility 
appears  in  the  contest  under  the  names  of  patriotism  by 
one  and  religion  by  the  other.  The  zealous  Roman  Cath- 
olics, formed  into  a  clan  by  the  efforts  of  the  priesthood, 
under  the  barbarous  methods  of  the  Middle  Ages,  all  work 
for  one  another  and  against  everybody  outside  the  clan, 
just  as  their  ancestors  of  European  history  did  when  the 


412  KING   MAMMON. 

clan  organization  bore  a  clan  name  and  was  headed  by 
chiefs  instead  of  priests.  The  amount  of  clan-spirit  and 
subserviency  to  leadership  is  measured  by  the  amount  of 
ignorance  and  consequent  lack  of  development  from  the 
brutal  existence  when  it  was  morally  wrong  for  any  man 
to  kill  his  clansman,1  but  perfectly  right  to  kill  the  mem- 
ber of  another  clan,  to  steal  his  wife  or  deprive  him  of  his 
other  property.  The  more  intelligent  Roman  Catho- 
lics, especially  those  who  have  been  educated  in  the 
public  schools  and  accustomed  to  fraternal  organizations, 
institutions  which  merely  bring  them  into  contact  with 
other  clan  members,  have  retained  comparatively  little 
of  the  narrow,  intolerant  spirit  that  once  characterized  all 
men.  The  ignorant  Catholic,  unemancipated  from  the 
savage  doctrines  of  the  past,  thinks  that  it  is  his  duty  to 
obey  his  clan-chief,  in  the  form  of  the  priest,  to  assist  a 
fellow-clansman,  and  to  regard  with  distrust  and  opposi- 
tion, if  not  with  actual  hatred,  all  who  are  not  members 
of  his  clan  and  consequently  "Good  Catholics."  That 
feeling  is  a  relic  of  barbarism  surviving  amidst  more 
highly  civilized  social  ideas,  and  the  real  corrective  that 
should  be  applied  is  not  the  organization  of  other  clans, 
but  the  civilizing  influences  of  education  and  association. 
The  existence  of  this  clan  spirit  among  Roman  Catholics 
has  recently  evoked  the  same  feeling  among  non-mem- 
bers of  that  faith,  who  are  now  organized  into  another 
ancient  clan  and  bound  into  a  brotherhood  to  make 
political  war  on  Catholics,  thus  fighting  the  devil  with 
fire  and  turning  civilization  backward.  There  is  little 
real  encouragement  in  the  present  attitude  of  the  Ameri- 

1  "  There  was  no  brotherhood  recognized  by  our  savage  forefathers 
except  actual  consanguinity  as  a  fact.  If  a  man  was  not  of  kin  to 
another,  there  was  nothing  between  them.  He  was  an  enemy  to  be 
slain,  or  spoiled,  or  hated  as  much  as  the  wild  beasts  upon  which  the 
tribe  made  war.  It  would  scarcely  be  too  strong  an  assertion  that  the 
dogs  which  followed  the  camp  had  more  in  common  with  it  than  the 
tribesmen  of  an  alien  and  unrelated  tribe." — SIR  HENRY  MAINE. 


KING   MAMMON.  413 

can  Protective  Association,  for  it  embodies  more  of  class 
antagonism  than  of  genuine  patriotism  in  its  present 
ideas.  If  its  members  will  devote  less  attention  to  keep- 
ing Roman  Catholics  out  of  office,  and  more  thought  to 
the  real  nature  of  the  evils  represented  by  the  clannish 
spirit  of  that  church,  they  will  discover  that  it  is  a  condi- 
tion which  is  not  to  be  eradicated  by  forming  other  clans 
of  the  same  kind,  but  which  may  be  gradually  removed 
by  education  and  by  firm,  reasonable,  and  open  warfare 
against  intolerance.  We  need  to  restrict  the  immigra- 
tion of  any  people  who  imagine  that  this  country  exists 
for  their  particular  clan  and  not  for  the  whole  popula- 
tion, and  we  need  to  extend  the  public-school  system  by 
converting  it  into  a  more  effective  weapon  against  the 
intolerance  of  all  clans.  Education  in  the  public  schools 
should  be  compulsory  upon  rich  and  poor  and  upon  the 
children  of  all  religious  faiths.  Isolation  and  ignorance 
made  the  antagonism  of  clans  in  the  past,  and  isolation 
and  a  one-sided  secular  education,  equivalent  to  igno- 
rance, are  making  the  religious  clans  of  the  present. 
When  young  people  are  compelled  to  associate  with  one 
another  day  after  day  in  the  schools,  it  is  impossible  for 
religious  fanaticism  to  completely  poison  their  minds 
with  the  teachings  of  a  narrow  intolerance.  When  they 
hear  all  sides  of  every  question,  as  one  day  they  will  in 
the  free  schools  of  this  country,  the  future  population  will 
not  be  governed  by  the  clan  spirit,  and  not  be  controlled 
by  the  ignorant  reverence  for  leadership  that  dominated 
the  past  and  still  influences  the  present.  Intelligently 
directed,  the  new  movement  in  opposition  to  intolerance 
may  accomplish  much  good,  but  it  must  rise  above  the 
narrow  channel  to  which  the  present  thought  is  confined. 
In  the  meantime,  what  of  the  man  who  hungers  in  the 
midst  of  plenty  and  starves  while  other  human  beings 
smother  in  the  wealth  that  society  has  produced  ?  Can  his 


4H  KING   MAMMON. 

condition  be  alleviated  in  spite  of  competition  ?  Pure 
competition  would  insist  that  he  shall  die  when  he  can 
no  longer  exist  by  his  own  efforts,  but  we  are  now  social- 
ists to  the  extent  of  denying  that  extreme  theory.  If  the 
erring  or  unfortunate  man  be  sick,  we  send  him  to  the 
public  hospital  ;  if  he  become  insane,  we  tenderly  care  for 
him,  although  knowing  his  malady  is  incurable,  instead 
of  taking  the  purely  economical  and  apparently  only 
reasonable  competitive  course  of  putting  him  out  of  his 
misery,  out  of  our  way,  and  out  of  existence  at  the  same 
time.  Yet,  in  spite  of  these  brotherly  duties  now  imposed 
upon  society  by  public  opinion,  instead  of  the  absolute 
neglect  of  the  sick  and  insane  which  once  expressed  the 
social  feelings  of  the  race,  men  still  contend  that  they 
owe  no  duties  to  the  fellow-creature  who  finds  the  natural 
opportunities  of  earth  monopolized  under  private  owner- 
ship, and  for  whom  there  exists  no  present  need  as  a  pro- 
ducer in  exchange  for  wages.  In  a  period  of  depression, 
when  thousands  tramp  the  country  unable  to  find  employ- 
ment, we  extend  charity  grudgingly  or  liberally  to  those 
in  actual  want,  and  by  private  or  public  alms  and  indis- 
criminate giving,  we  increase  the  evil  instead  of  lessening 
it,  racking  our  brains  meanwhile  to  know  what  shall  be 
done  with  such  crowds  of  people  without  homes  or  useful 
employment.  The  more  rapidly  improvement  is  made  in 
our  industrial  methods,  the  richer  society  becomes,  and 
the  greater  the  production  the  longer  will  be  the  idle 
period  of  consumption.  Hence  the  curse  of  industrial 
depression  will  become  more  frequent  and  the  idle  men 
more  numerous  in  such  periods  the  faster  we  increase 
our  material  prosperity,  so  long  as  our  present  methods 
of  industry  remain  in  operation.  Any  hope  for  the  future 
that  is  based  on  the  fallacy  that  the  increased  and  increas- 
ing production  of  wealth  will  itself  solve  the  problem, 
regardless  of  distribution  and  use,  will  prove  as  barren  of 


KING    MAMMON.  415 

results  as  the  conceptions  of  a  man  who  would  retain  the 
existing  system  of  wealth  control  under  absolute  individ- 
ual possession  and  then  ameliorate  the  existence  of  human- 
ity by  converting  the  earth  itself  into  magical  stores  of 
food  and  clothing,  perpetually  reproduced  as  they  are  con- 
sumed, without  any  effort  whatever  from  human  beings. 
The  unemployed  man  who  suffers  from  that  condition 
does  not  need  charity,  but  he  does  need  justice.  It  may 
be  admitted  in  advance  that  he  is  not  economically  pru- 
dent, and  that  in  many  cases  his  habits  may  have  been 
vicious.  He  may  have  been  improvident,  or,  in  an 
industrial  sense,  incompetent.  He  may  have  been  a 
drunkard  or  even  a  criminal.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the 
previously  bad  record  of  many  soldiers  in  the  great  Coxey 
armies  of  the  world,  they  are  still  entitled  to  justice.  If 
these  defects  in  human  nature,  from  which  introspection 
will  teach  us  that  no  man  is  wholly  free,  must  deprive  a 
human  being  of  the  privilege  of  existing  by  his  own  efforts, 
let  us,  to  be  entirely  consistent,  destroy  every  man  for 
whom  there  exists  no  place  in  which  he  can  labor  either 
for  himself  or  in  return  for  compensation  from  another 
human  being.  Every  man,  no  matter  what  his  past  his- 
tory may  have  been,  if  we  are  not  prepared  to  put  him 
out  of  existence  for  his  misdeeds,  has  a  moral  right  to  an 
opportunity  to  labor  for  his  own  subsistence.  Along  with 
that  right  goes  the  corresponding  duty  of  performing  that 
labor,  and  the  social  creed  herein  advocated  would  grant 
the  right  and  impose  the  duty  on  all  society.  The  will- 
fully idle  rich  and  the  willfully  idle  poor  need  to  be  com- 
pelled to  perform  their  share  of  the  social  labors,  and  the 
man  who  is  willing  to  work  should  not  be  forced  to  beg 
or  steal  in  order  to  exist,  nor  to  support  the  others  in  idle- 
ness. A  high-spirited  young  laborer  recently  remarked 
in  discussing  the  scarcity  of  employment,  that  he  would 
commit  highway  robbery  before  he  would  beg,  and  where 


416  KING   MAMMON. 

the  genuine  manly  feeling  of  independence  exists,   his 
assertion  will  be  applauded. 

Self-preservation  ultimately  extinguishes  all  feelings  of 
right  and  wrong  in  the  human  breast,  but  we  cannot  plead 
that  stern  doctrine  in  defense  of  the  tyranny  that  is  in- 
flicted on  those  men  who  want  work  and  approach  starva- 
tion in  the  midst  of  plenty.  The  characteristic  feature  of 
the  modern  depression  is  a  superabundance  of  wealth 
and  the  existence  of  want  in  the  midst  of  it. 

Progress,  if  these  views  be  correct,  must  be  along  the 
lines  of  public  improvements  prudently  conducted  in 
times  of  industrial  depression,  and  the  public  funds  for 
this  purpose  should  be  derived  so  far  as  possible  from  the 
vast  estates  that  otherwise  become  dissipated  by  the 
frivolities  of  the  idle  rich.  It  is  better  to  control  the  sur- 
plus wealth  of  society  in  this  way  than  to  permit  it  to 
generate  by  family  descent  the  teachings  of  Oscar  Wilde 
and  his  class  in  our  midst.  There  are  millions  of  miles 
of  muddy  and  dusty  roads  to  reconstruct ;  there  are  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  swamp  lands  to  drain  or  fill ;  there  is 
endless  work  of  all  kinds  to  do  that  is  better  for  human 
beings  than  that  idleness  wherein  the  devil  in  human 
nature  gains  ascendency  over  its  better  instincts  and  feel- 
ings. The  gospel  of  useful  employment  needs  to  be 
preached  among  both  rich  and  poor. 

What  right  have  we  as  intelligent  and  fair-minded  human 
beings  to  blame  the  voluntary  tramp  for  not  working, 
when  we  permit  and  even  encourage  the  formation  of 
another  class  of  tourist  tramps,  owing  their  existence  to 
unearned  wealth,  who,  sooner  or  later  in  the  line  of  de- 
scent, consider  work  degrading,  just  as  the  tramp  of  the 
barns  and  hedges  considers  it  disagreeable?  The  truth 
needs  to  be  told  over  and  over  again,  that  he  who  works 
not,  whether  pauper  or  prince,  is  a  parasite  upon  society. 
Holding  a  mere  claim  upon  the  results  of  other  men's 


KING    MAMMON.  417 

efforts  is  not  production,  and  the  collection  of  William 
W.  Astor's  immense  rents  from  inherited  lands  and  build- 
ings, although  legally  permitted,  is  not  morally  or  equi- 
tably any  more  defensible  than  the  doctrine  of  other 
parasites  who  insist  that  the  "world  owes  them  a  living," 
by  which  they  mean  a  living  without  labor.  This  senti- 
ment is  expressed  without  any  hostility  toward  Mr.  Astor, 
or  toward  any  other  man  who  is  in  the  possession  of 
inherited  estates,  but  it  is  a  truth  that  needs  to  be  im- 
pressed upon  the  minds  of  all  who  would  honestly  seek 
better  principles  for  the  future  than  those  which  control 
the  present.  No  personal  responsibility  or  blame  attaches 
to  any  man  for  existing  laws,  which  are  simply  the  result 
of  conditions  that  had  the  universal  approval  of  preceding 
generations. 

There  is  already,  in  the  discussion  of  the  social  question, 
too  much  factional  bitterness  expressed  by  people  who, 
on  one  side,  magnify  the  vices  and  folly  of  the  "prole- 
tarian "  and  denounce  him  for  his  often  unreasonable  de- 
mands, and  on  the  other  by  advocates  of  the  poor  as  a 
class  who  see  in  the  rich  man  only  a  demon  of  avarice 
and  extortion.  Rich  and  poor  should  be  regarded,  to 
some  extent,  as  slaves  of  the  economical  system  they 
have  developed,  borne  down  and  crushed  under  their 
accumulation,  ready  to  destroy  one  another  over  its  pos- 
session, yet  all  actually  consuming  at  the  end  of  existence, 
approximately  equal  quantities  of  the  food  and  warmth 
which  are  alone  capable  of  consumption.  Extremes  of 
wealth  and  poverty  are  both  degrading  in  their  nature. 
The  busy  rich  man  becomes  dwarfed  in  all  conceptions 
of  life  outside  of  the  mere  aggregation  of  capital.  The 
idle  rich  become  voluptuous,  profligate,  or  effeminate. 
The  busy  poor  are  confined  solely  to  the  necessities  of 
working,  eating,  and  sleeping  without  real  mind-progress  ; 
and  the  idle  poor  become  the  mere  brutes  that  infest  vol- 
27 


41 8  KING   MAMMON. 

untary  trarnpdom  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Were  not 
some  control  of  wealth  distribution  beneficial  to  all,  it 
could  not  be  consistently  advocated  ;  for  there  will  be  no 
solution  of  the  social  problem  from  the  habit  of  regarding 
it  solely  as  a  matter  of  dollars  and  cents. 

The  evil  conditions  of  the  industrial  depression  consti- 
tute the  really  dangerous  problem  that  is  before  civiliza- 
tion. In  a  period  of  industrial  activity,  the  condition  of 
the  laboring  classes,  while  far  from  being  the  ideal  of  a 
philanthropist,  is  still  not  unfortunate,  and  the  comforts 
they  enjoy  in  this  country  are  vastly  greater  than  laborers 
ever  before  experienced  in  any  part  of  the  world.  The 
familiar  assertion  that  "the  rich  are  becoming  richer,  and 
the  poor  poorer, "  in  its  literal  sense  is  not  true.  While 
civilization  progresses,  while  the  brutal  savage  becomes 
humanized,  and  morally  and  materially  develops  into  what 
we  of  the  present  moment  denominate  civilized  man,  as 
though  that  development  were  perfected,  society  contin- 
ually becomes  richer.  In  the  early  history  of  the  race, 
almost  no  wealth  beyond  a  day's  or  a  week's  food,  a 
scanty  supply  of  clothing,  and  a  rude  shelter  exists  for 
future  sustenance,  and  the  small  stock  is  communal  prop- 
erty. Man  is  a  tool-making  animal,  however,  and 
thence  comes  wealth.  In  all  his  subsequent  life,  extend- 
ing over  century  after  century,  his  history  is  the  record 
of  inventions  and  the  economical  and  social  changes 
effected  by  them.  In  the  nineteenth  century  he  has 
subdued  the  forces  of  nature  by  the  contrivance  of 
machinery  and  improved  methods  of  industry  so  that  one 
hour  of  his  time  accomplishes  more  productive  results 
than  one  hundred  hours  of  his  savage  ancestor's  labor. 
Man  is  inevitably  rich  in  the  present,  therefore,  compared 
with  any  period  of  his  past  existence,  and  the  farther 
back  we  go  in  the  history  of  any  nation  the  poorer  its 
people  become  ;  for  proceeding  in  that  direction  we  reach, 


KING   MAMMON.  419 

sooner  or  later,  a  savage  existence.  The  improvements 
in  material  conditions  within  recent  years  have  been 
elaborately  proved  in  statistical  researches  by  writers  like 
Edward  Atkinson,  but  a  mere  consideration  of  the  nature 
of  social  progress  should  teach  anyone  that  the  people  of 
every  civilized  nation  are  now  richer  than  their  more 
savage  ancestors  were,  which  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
they,  in  general,  have  now  better  and  more  abundant 
food,  better  clothes,  better  houses  ;  and,  producing  these 
things  more  easily  than  their  ancestors  could,  they  also 
possess  more  leisure  from  productive  labor  than  more 
ancient  people  had.  When  trees  are  transformed  into 
finished  lumber  entirely  by  machinery,  we  have  better 
houses  for  all  classes  than  when  the  same  work  was  done 
by  hand.  By  similar  inventions  applied  to  spinning  and 
weaving,  all  men  of  the  present  wear  better  clothes  than 
those  of  the  past,  and  by  improvements  in  agriculture 
and  transportation  they  have  more  abundant  food.  These 
improvements  have  also  given  men  more  leisure  by 
shortening  the  hours  of  labor.  Comparatively  poor  men 
to-day  enjoy  luxuries  that  could  not  formerly  be  obtained 
by  the  wealthy. l  The  luxury  and  profligacy  of  the  rich 
in  Greece  and  Rome  were  in  some  forms  astounding,  yet 
their  houses  lacked  the  ordinary  convenience  or  apparent 
necessity  in  this  age,  of  a  chimney  or  other  flue.  In 
England,  when  America  was  discovered,  the  mansions 
of  the  rich  contained  usually  no  glass  windows,  and  the 
houses  of  the  poor  were  more  uncomfortable  than  a 
modern  cow-stable.  It  is  not  necessary  to  produce 

1  "  In  those  times,"  says  a  writer  about  the  year  1300,  speaking  of  the 
age  of  Frederick  II.,  "the  manners  of  the  Italians  were  rude.  A  man 
and  his  wife  ate  off  the  same  plate.  There  were  no  wooden -handled 
knives,  nor  more  than  one  or  two  drinking  cups  in  the  house.  Candles 
of  wax  or  tallow  were  unknown  ;  a  servant  held  a  torch  during  supper. 
The  clothes  of  the  men  were  of  leather  unlined.  The  common  people 
ate  flesh  but  three  times  a  week.  A  small  stock  of  coins  seemed  riches." 
— HENRY  HALLAM. 


420  KING   MAMMON. 

statistics  to  show  the  increase  of  wealth  among  the  people, 
or  to  prove  that  all  classes  have  gained  in  that  respect. 
Any  man  of  forty  or  fifty  years  can  remember  when  the 
laborer's  or  the  farmer's  children  in  this  country  were 
usually  expected  to  go  without  shoes  in  pleasant  weather, 
unless  upon  some  special  occasion,  while  at  the  present 
time  a  barefooted  child  would  attract  as  much  attention 
as  the  sudden  appearance  of  an  extinct  saurian.  The 
third  chapter  of  Macaulay's  "  History  of  England, "  which, 
in  real  value,  exceeds  all  the  remainder  of  his  works, 
shows  how  the  same  changes  went  on  in  the  British  Isles, 
providing  wealth  where  poverty  formerly  existed,  and  de- 
veloping new  desires  among  the  people  for  every  want 
which  they  became  able  to  supply. 

The  truth  appears  to  be  that  the  aggregate  wealth  of 
society,  or  its  wealth  proportioned  to  numbers,  becomes 
continually  greater  ;  that  as  society  becomes  richer,  some 
of  its  individuals  necessarily  hold  much  larger  fortunes 
than  before  ;  and  that  some  of  the  poor  remain  the  same 
miserable  rats  of  destitution  which  have  been  found  in  all 
periods  of  the  world's  history  under  individual  competi-- 
tion.  The  average  condition  of  the  people  becomes  more 
luxurious,  and  the  wealthier  among  the  founders  of  the 
United  States  government  did  not  live  so  comfortably  as 
many  of  the  railroad  employe's  engaged  in  the  strike  of 
1894. 

Such  historical  facts  ought  to  be  candidly  admitted 
by  all  who  earnestly  desire  a  solution  of  the  social  prob- 
lem, and  not  merely  to  excite  class  hostility.  In  the 
agitation  of  the  labor  question,  intense  and  unreasonable 
selfishness  has  been  displayed  by  the  labor  organizations 
and  by  capitalists.  Both  have  assumed  that  no  other 
human  beings  were  concerned  in  the  results  of  their  in- 
dustry, its  continuance  or  cessation,  than  the  employer  and 
his  employes.  The  capitalist  has  discharged  his  laborers, 


KING   MAMMON.  421 

no  matter  what  their  numbers,  summarily  without  regard 
to  the  opportunities  for  other  employment,  or  the  unfor- 
tunate condition  in  which  large  numbers  of  unemployed 
men  might  be  placed.  The  laborers  are  organized  in 
associations  tyrannical  and  intolerant  when  they  have 
power,  shutting  other  men  out  of  opportunities  to  learn 
their  trades,  dictating  the  management  of  the  employer's 
business  whenever  they  have  the  opportunity  of  doing  so, 
and  denying  other  men  the  right  to  labor  when  they  will 
not  work.  Both  contestants  are  narrow  in  their  views  of 
social  life.  The  capitalist  exhibits  no  patriotic  sentiments, 
and  no  desire  for  anything  but  the  protection  of  bayonets, 
while  he  controls  his  vast  wealth  to  suit  his  own  pleasure, 
as  though  no  other  human  being  existed  in  the  world. 
The  associated  laborers  of  a  particular  trade  want  a  mo- 
nopoly of  the  employment  in  which  they  are  engaged,  with 
all  the  profit  it  will  afford  paid  over  in  the  form  of  wages, 
and  they  do  not  concern  themselves  about  any  other 
social  evils  than  those  which  they  believe  to  relate  to 
their  form  of  employment. 

Their  disputes  with  capitalists  are  on  both  sides  purely 
a  selfish  contest,  in  which,  so  far,  has  appeared  no  in- 
dication of  a  real  patriotic  desire  for  social  improve- 
ment. The  condition  of  the  average  laborer  in  the 
United  States  is  comfortable,  except  in  a  period  of 
depression,  and,  compared  with  the  life  of  laborers  in 
the  past,  it  is  luxurious.  He  often  saves  no  more 
than  laborers  formerly  did,  but  he  lives  more  expen- 
sively, and  compared  with  the  ancient  laborer,  he  is  an 
aristocrat.  The  industrial  depression  is  his  only  real 
hardship,  and  its  dangers  would  be  greatly  lessened  if 
he  were  a  thrifty  economist,  like  the  capitalists  whom  he 
sometimes  denounces.  He  needs  to  know  that  "hard 
times  "  in  the  modern  industrial  world  are  as  inevitable  as 
winter  or  death,  and  a  reasonable  prudence  should  dictate 


422  KING   MAMMON. 

that  he  lessen  some  of  his  expenditures  during  the  period 
of  prosperity  in  order  that  the  inevitable  stagnation  may 
not  find  him  at  the  disadvantage  of  having  neither  work 
nor  money. 

It  is  a  stale  truth,  although  one  apparently  not  be- 
lieved, that  when  man  has  completed  his  life  journey, 
his  actual  consumption  of  the  products  of  human  labor  is 
limited  to  what  he  ate  and  wore,  whether  he  be  a  million- 
aire or  a  beggar.  In  spite  of  this  self-evident  proposition, 
neither  millionaire  nor  beggar  apparently  accepts  it  as 
truth,  for  the  one  clings  to  every  dollar  of  his  possessions  as 
though  it  were  a  part  of  his  life,  and  the  other  often  alludes 
to  the  rich  man  as  though  he  were  some  rapacious  demon 
who  swallowed  carloads  of  meat  and  bread  at  a  mouth- 
ful, or  wore  out  a  thousand  suits  of  clothes  in  a  single 
day.  James  D.  Fair  at  his  death  left  an  estate  worth 
nearly  forty  millions  of  dollars,  but  although  he  controlled 
this  immense  fortune,  he  worked  harder  than  many  poor 
men  and  consumed  only  a  small  quantity  of  food  and. 
clothing.  Leaving  out  of  account  the  idlers  in  society 
among  the  tourist  tramps  of  aristocracy,  and  discarding 
the  tramps  of  the  corresponding  ragged  aristocracy  at  the 
other  end  of  the  social  scale,  who  are  all  parasites,  the 
wealth  produced  by  social  effort  is  consumed  nearly 
equally  by  the  workers  all  along  the  line,  from  the  wage- 
worker  to  the  active,  energetic  millionaire  employer. 
Rich  men,  who  are  endowed  with  a  tremendous  energy 
and  executive  capacity,  by  their  intense  effort  and  skillful 
management  probably  produce  a  thousand  times  what 
they  consume,  and  leave  it  in  the  world  for  the  consump- 
tion of  other  men  when  they  die.  The  only  wealth  that 
is  consumed  inequitably  is  that  absorbed  by  the  idle 
people  of  the  two  aristocracies  comprised  in  the  voluntary 
tramps  and  the  useless  successors  to  fortunes  earned  by 
other  people. 


KING   MAMMON.  423 

The  real  question,  therefore,  is  not  the  improvement 
of  the  laborer's  condition  during  periods  of  activity,  but 
the  protection  of  his  interests  in  the  period  of  depres- 
sion, in  which,  if  he  be  prudent,  he  will,  first  of  all,  com- 
mence to  assist  himself  by  reserving  in  his  own  title  a 
portion  of  that  surplus  wealth  that  must,  sooner  or  later, 
cause  the  depression  he  deplores.  If  he  rids  society  of 
the  two  idle  classes  that  have  been  described,  he  and 
other  workers  then  consume  about  equally,  according  to 
their  appetites  and  rough  usage  of  clothes,  all  that  is  pro- 
duced, either  during  the  period  of  active  work  or  in  the 
enforced  idleness  of  the  depression,  so  there  is  nothing  in 
the  social  condition  for  him  to  complain  of,  granting  that 
the  two  classes  of  idlers  disappear,  except  the  mere  con- 
trol of  wealth  in  the  form  of  the  power  to  direct  its  use  in 
production.  Considering  wills  and  inheritance  abolished, 
it  is  emphatically  true  that  the  men  who  succeed  under 
competition  are  the  very  best  industrial  managers  that 
society  can  procure.  They  work  like  demons,  they  are 
economical,  prudent,  sagacious,  and  the  result  is  that  such 
a  fund  of  wealth  is  accumulated  by  their  successful  man- 
agement that  society  is  nearly  smothered  in  its  own  riches. 
Society  is  wonderfully  energetic  in  its  production  and 
wonderfully  idiotic  in  its  theories  of  distribution  and  com- 
sumption.  As  a  means  of  production,  men  can  do  no 
better  than  to  continue  under  the  leadership  of  the  Cap- 
tains of  Industry,  for  they  know  how  to  command,  and 
upon  the  efficiency  of  the  commander  depends  to  a  great 
extent  the  success  of  the  army  ;  but  when  it  comes  to  the 
other  question  of  use  and  distribution,  something  else 
besides  the  mere  cumulative  instinct  of  the  business  man 
is  needed.  The  mere  capitalist  concerns  himself  exclu- 
sively with  dollars,  and  other  human  aspirations  are  to 
him  nothing.  He  would  hold  his  money  absolutely  in 
his  possession  during  life  and  cling  to  it  beyond  his  death. 


424  KING   MAMMON. 

He  would  convert  the  whole  earth  into  manufactured  prod- 
ucts and  sell  them  to  the  inhabitants  of  Mars  regardless 
of  his  earthly  companions  if  he  could  retain  the  proceeds 
in  the  form  of  a  fortune.  The  correct  principle,  there- 
fore, to  apply  to  this  valuable  servant  but  hard  master, 
is  to  give  him  a  life-lease  of  his  possessions  and  collect 
the  rent  at  the  end  of  his  existence,  before  he  turns  it 
over  to  some  person  who  has  phenomenal  capacities  for 
mismanagement,  instead  of  the  executive  skill  which  led 
to  the  accumulation  of  the  fortune. 

The  provision  of  public  employment  in  periods  of  de- 
pression will  involve  some  difficulties,  but  they  are  not  in- 
superable. The  principal  danger  to  avoid  will  be  the  with- 
drawal of  men  from  other  avenues  of  employment  in  order 
to  enter  the  public  service.  To  avoid  this,  wages  would 
have  to  be  established  at  a  lower  figure  than  the  usual 
rates  afforded  by  competitive  industry,  but  still  sufficient  to 
afford  comfortable  maintenance.  The  series  of  internal 
improvements  thus  conducted  should  be  in  charge  of  the 
national  government,  so  that  the  work  could  be  easily 
distributed  in  a  way  to  avoid  the  concentration  of  too  many 
of  the  unemployed  class  at  any  particular  point.  Con- 
nected with  these  operations  should  be  a  compulsory 
system  of  labor,  whereby  the  voluntary  tramp,  who 
thinks  the  world  owes  him  a  living  without  work,  could 
be  compelled  to  do  something  more  useful  than  inflicting 
his  presence  upon  a  suffering  public  in  all  parts  of  the 
country.  The  details  of  such  a  system  need  not  be  elabo- 
rated, for  necessarily  they  would  be  greatly  the  result  of 
experiment,  but  there  is  nothing  apparently  impossible  in 
such  plans.  The  idea  is  not  paternalism  in  government, 
but  it  is  simply  justice  to  the  individual  and  self-protec- 
tion to  society.  If  the  unemployed  do  not  work,  society 
feeds  them  in  one  form  or  another  within  its  borders, 
either  in  its  jails,  or  hospitals,  or  free  lunch-houses,  or  from 


KING  MAMMON.  425 

door  to  door,  so  that  even  if  we  take  the  cold-blooded 
economical  view  of  the  problem,  embodied  in  dollars  and 
cents,  it  is  better  that  these  men  shall  do  useful  labor  of 
some  kind,  and  be  out  of  that  idleness  which  breeds  mis- 
chief, than  to  be  tramping  over  the  nation  from  house  to 
house,  sinking  into  vice  and  crime,  and  humiliating  the 
pride  of  every  true  American  in  the  institutions  of  his 
country. 

Toward  these  two  results — work  for  the  idle  rich,  and 
work  for  the  idle  poor — with  fair  opportunities  and  justice 
for  all,  the  efforts  embodied  in  this  volume  have  been 
directed.  If  the  results  of  the  future  correspond  with  the 
history  of  the  past,  conservatism  will  compel  the  progress 
to  be  very  slow  ;  but  very  gradual  reform  will  not  be  det- 
rimental if  it  be  sufficiently  rapid  to  prevent  the  col- 
lision of  belligerent  factions.  The  lines  of  advance  seem 
at  present  to  be  in  the  direction  of  taxing  inheritance.1 
In  California  a  small  tax  was  recently  levied  on  collateral 
inheritances,  and  the  estate  of  Leland  Stanford  is  now 
engaged  in  litigation  over  its  payment.  At  the  legislative 
session  of  the  same  State  in  1895,  a  bill  restricting  in- 
heritance to  $500,000  was  introduced,  but  was  withdrawn 
without  consideration.  The  bar  association  of  Illinois 
has  recommended  that  individual  inheritance  be  limited 
to  $500,000.  Judge  Lyman  Trumbull,  while  these  pages 
have  been  in  preparation,  has  incorporated  the  idea  of 
limiting  unearned  wealth  in  the  form  of  inheritance 
among  the  new  political  doctrines  that  he  desires  to  see 

1  Both  houses  of  the  Illinois  Legislature  have  passed  a  bill  to  tax  in- 
heritances above  $20,000  I  per  cent.  It  is  expected  that  the  law  may  be 
attacked  in  court  on  the  ground  of  lack  of  uniformity.  It  makes  a  dis- 
tinction between  a  person  who  inherits  $20,000  and  those  who  inherit 
less  or  nothing. 

It  is  finally  settled  that  Jay  Gould's  estate  foots  up  $73,224,567.  The 
sum  of  $6,000,000  in  the  form  of  inheritance  tax  was  paid  into  the  State 
Treasury  under  protest.  There  seems  to  be  one  point  at  which  a  multi- 
millionaire may  be  put  in  a  corner  and  made  to  pay  taxes — San  Francisco 
Bulletin,  June  18,  1895. 


426  KING   MAMMON. 

advocated.  All  these  suggestions  of  a  changing  public 
sentiment  are  less  radical  than  those  which  have  been 
here  presented,  but  all  public  movements  proceed  slowly, 
and  we  must  be  content  if  the  movement  is  in  the  right 
direction. 

Of  many  other  subsidiary  advances,  connected  to 
some  extent  with  the  particular  progress  here  advocated, 
there  is  not  room  to  speak.  Whenever  any  material 
change  is  made  in  our  laws  relating  to  property  and  em- 
ployment with  a  view  to  improving  social  conditions,  a 
severe  restriction  of  foreign  immigration  will  have  to 
accompany  the  transformation.  In  this  country,  at  the 
present  time,  we  cannot  safely  attempt  to  form  a 
social  paradise  of  advanced  civilization  and  then  invite 
invasion  by  the  debased,  the  ignorant,  the  clannish,  and 
the  unreasonable  of  other  nations.  The  theory  that  this 
country  is  an  asylum  for  the  oppressed  of  all  nations  is  not 
even  moral  in  its  real  significance.  What  we  need  to  do  for 
the  oppressed  of  all  nations  is  to  keep  them  outside  our 
borders  till  our  people  can  have  time  to  breathe  and  settle 
their  family  quarrels.  One  earnest,  patriotic  example  of 
progression  in  human  rights  and  equality  in  this  country 
will  be  worth  more  to  the  oppressed  of  all  nations  as  a 
stimulus  to  their  own  efforts  than  all  the  doubtful  asylums 
we  can  now  offer.  In  the  recent  Asiatic  war,  Japan  did 
China  a  valuable  service  by  defeat,  and  the  United  States 
will  do  the  laboring  classes  of  all  countries  the  greatest 
good  by  compelling  them  to  stay  away  from  this  country 
until  more  equitable  social  relations  are  established. 
One  country  of  the  modern  civilization,  justly  reformed 
in  its  social  institutions,  is  worth  more  to  laboring  human- 
ity than  all  the  asylums  earth  has  to  offer. 

Education  is  the  never-failing  theme  of  reformers  since 
the  days  of  Plato.  The  education  of  the  saloons  is  the 
form  that  is  now  most  prominent  in  the  United  States,  for 


KING   MAMMON.  427 

in  number  they  exceed  the  school-houses.  Compulsory 
education  in  the  school-houses  and  compulsory  restriction 
of  education  in  the  saloons  by  means  of  laws  based  on  the 
intelligent  methods  adopted  in  Scandinavia,  eliminating 
the  profit  of  the  saloon-keeper  and  the  attractiveness  of 
the  saloon,  will  be  steps  in  the  right  direction.  When  the 
state  provides  money  for  free  education  in  the  school,  it 
has  the  right  to  compel  attendance  in  order  that  its  future 
citizen  shall  receive  the  benefit ;  and  when  the  education 
of  the  saloon  is  contrary  to  public  interest,  the  right  of 
control  and  repression  should  be  promptly  exercised. 
Compulsory  education  of  all,  rich  and  poor,  religious  and 
non-religious,  in  the  public  schools  up  to  the  age  of  fifteen 
years  would  do  more  to  remove  the  intolerance  of  ancient 
clan-spirit  from  the  nation,  and  to  form  a  homogeneous 
people  free  from  aristocracy,  prejudice,  and  the  spirit  of 
A.  P.  A. -Catholicism  than  all  other  progress  except  the 
destruction  of  heredity  in  wealth. 

Coincident  with  this  change  should  occur  reformation 
in  the  electoral  privilege,  in  which  intelligence,  familiarity 
with  our  language,  and  good  character  should  be  requisites 
for  voting.  When  the  citizen  is  given  the  opportunity  of 
education  he  should  be  made  to  regard  its  possession  as  a 
duty,  and  if  he  is  mentally  unfit  to  acquire  a  rudimentary 
knowledge  of  the  language,  the  government,  the  history,' 
and  the  social  spirit  of  his  country,  he  should  be  debarred 
from  equal  participation  in  its  affairs.  When  women  are 
given  the  privilege  of  the  ballot  in  the  United  States,  or 
even  before  that  time,  the  progressive  patriot  will  desire 
to  see  a  public  examination  held  for  all  who  desire  the 
privilege  of  voting,  in  which  the  applicants,  whether 
natives  or  foreigners,  will  furnish  proofs  not  only  of  moral 
character,  but  of  their  ability  to  comprehend  the  spirit 
of  American  institutions.  Ignorance  and  vice  are  bad 
qualities  in  the  voter,  no  matter  whether  the  individual  is 


428  KING  MAMMON, 

born  in  this  country  or  out  of  it ;  no  matter  whether 
they  are  the  attributes  of  a  man  or  a  woman.  De  Tocque- 
ville  would  have  been  a  more  desirable  American  citizen 
after  a  residence  of  one  day  in  the  United  States  than 
some  other  Frenchmen  after  a  residence  of  fifty  years, 
and  he  knew  more  about  the  real  nature  of  our  country 
than  nineteen-twentieths  of  our  native  inhabitants.  Intel- 
lect, education,  and  morality,  and  not  birthplace,  property, 
or  sex  should  be  the  tests  for  acquiring-  the  right  to  vote. 
Such  women  as  George  Eliot  or  Annie  Besant  would  im- 
mediately make  better  citizens  and  better  voters  than  four- 
fifths  of  the  present  voting  population  of  the  United  States. 
Many  native-born  voters  are  so  stupid  and  morally  indif- 
ferent to  the  duties  of  citizenship  that  their  votes  are  in- 
variably controlled  by  bribery  in  one  form  or  another.  It 
is,  of  course,  the  old  story  of  defective  human  nature,  but 
we  need  to  move  in  the  right  direction  to  counteract  the 
evil,  instead  of  falsely  assuming  that  a  man's  birthplace 
or  the  length  of  his  residence  in  our  country  fits  or  un- 
fits him  for  voting.  A  fool  or  a  rascal  born  here  will 
never  be  fit  to  vote,  and  a  fool  or  a  rascal  born  in  some 
other  country  cannot  be  made  into  a  good  citizen  by  any 
period  of  residence,  however  extended. 

We  need  to  set  more  value  on  morality  and  ability  as 
social  factors,  and  less  upon  mere  sex,  origin,  religion,  or 
heredity.  It  matters  not  whether  the  individual  as  a  citi- 
zen is  a  man  or  a  woman,  an  American  or  a  European,  a 
Jew,  a  Roman  Catholic,  a  Protestant,  or  an  Agnostic  ;  but  it 
does  matter  whether  he  displays  mentally  and  morally 
some  conception  of  duty  as  an  American  citizen,  and  some 
freedom  from  the  savagely  intolerant  ideas  that  are  the 
bane  of  ignorance  wherever  found. 

Polish  the  units  of  humanity  by  attrition  during  early 
life  in  the  public  school,  and  rich  and  poor,  native  and 
foreigner,  Christian  and  Jew,  Roman  Catholic  and  Prot- 


KING   MAMMON.  429 

estant,  rubbed  together  in  natural  contact,  will  lose  many 
of  the  hideous  excrescences,  in  the  forms  of  superstition, 
bigotry,  pride,  arrogance,  servility,  and  intolerance,  so  re- 
pulsive to  a  noble  mind.  The  sorts  of  social  leaders  and 
of  social  laborers  thus  brought  into  the  competition  of  the 
public  school  on  their  own  merits  in  early  life,  would 
come  out  of  it  with  a  genuine  appreciation  of  the  divine 
truth  embodied  in  a  warm-hearted  Scotchman's  sturdy 
words, — a  truth  despised  by  the  universal  tyranny  of  early 
race  existence,  respecting  nothing  in  God  or  man  but 
power  ;  a  truth  ignored  in  too  many  sermons  of  past  and 
present ;  but  still  a  truth  honored  by  the  noblest  minds 
to-day  and  destined  to  become  the  Spirit  of  the  Future 
heralded  by  Robert  Burns  when  he  wrote — 

"  For  a'   that,  and  a'  that, 

Our  toils  obscure,  and  a'  that ; 
The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp, 
The  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that." 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE    DUTY  OF   AN    AMERICAN  CITIZEN. 

"  Be  brave,  be  jttst,  be  pure,  be  true  in  word  and  deed  ;  care  not  for  your 
enjoyment,  care  not  for  your  life  ;  care  only  for  what  is  right.  So,  and 
not  otherwise,  it  shall  be  well  with  yott.  So  the  Maker  of  you  has  ordered, 
whom  you  will  disobey  at  your  peril." — JAMES  ANTHONY  FROUDE. 

COINCIDENT  with  the  celebration,  in  1895,  of  the  birthday 
of  this  country,  comes  the  expression  of  current  thought 
concerning  public  duty  or  patriotism,  enunciated  in  towns 
and  cities  by  thousands  of  speakers,  and  appearing  in  in- 
numerable newspapers  prepared  by  thousands  of  writers, 
as  appropriate  comment  upon  the  national  anniversary. 


430  KING   MAMMON. 

Nothing  more  clearly  illustrates  than  do  these  recent 
utterances  on  the  Fourth  of  July  the  approaching  conflict, 
perpetually  consummated  among  our  ancestors,  and  per- 
petually renewed  by  their  descendants,  between  the 
struggling  forces  of  radically  progressive  thought  and 
those  of  conservatism.  Two  types  of  thought  are  ex- 
pressed by  the  writers  and  speakers  who  have  on  this 
day  of  patriotism  considered  the  history  and  present 
condition  of  the  nation.  These  classes,  each  consoli- 
dated for  simplicity  into  the  form  of  an  individual,  present 
the  picture  of  two  men  standing  squarely  back  to  back, 
the  one  pointing  to  the  past,  the  other  to  the  future,  each 
telling  of  what  he  sees. 

One  is  a  conservative  who  honors  with  absurd  enthusi- 
asm the  institutions  of  this  country  adopted  one  hundred 
years  ago  ;  who  glorifies  in  servile  reverence  the  names 
of  its  early  founders  ;  who  shows  in  detail  the  growth  of 
the  country  in  area,  wealth,  and  population  since  the  era 
of  the  Revolution  ;  and  who  invokes  for  the  future  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  same  political  and  social  methods  that 
have  been  accepted  since  our  government  was  instituted. 
The  other  is  a  progressionist,  looking  steadfastly  toward 
the  future,  the  same  being  in  character  and  temperament, 
though  not  in  intellect,  education,  and  moral  development, 
as  the  progressionist  of  preceding  ages.  He  admits  that 
some  triumphs  over  ignorance  and  poverty  and  tyranny 
have  already  been  accomplished  by  his  forefathers,  but 
having  ascertained  these  truths  from  a  comprehensive 
study  of  the  past,  he  turns  his  face  resolutely  in  the 
opposite  direction  and  says  "  Onward." 

Thereafter  will  these  two  men,  the  one  looking  to  the 
past  the  other  to  the  future,  diverge  in  social  and  political 
thought  more  and  more  widely,  for  men  can  never  yield 
implicit  honor  to  the  social  institutions  of  their  forefathers 
if  they  would  continue,  as  their  ancestors  have  done,  to 


KING   MAMMON.  431 

make  such  institutions  better.  It  is  well  to  understand 
and  appreciate  the  improvements  that  have  been  accom- 
plished by  the  patriots  of  other  ages,  but  when  that  ap- 
preciation degenerates  into  a  blind,  unreasoning  ancestor- 
worship,  impressing  us  with  the  belief  that  our  civilization 
is  perfected,  and  that  all  social  improvement  has  been 
completed  by  the  men  who  have  preceded  us,  the  habit 
of  conservatism  becomes  a  degrading  form  of  sentiment 
not  really  higher  or  nobler  than  the  fetich-faith  of  the 
African  savage.  The  men  of  the  present  who  refuse  to  re- 
main bound  by  the  ideas  and  moral  perceptions  of  other 
human  beings  who  preceded  them  on  earth  will  separate 
politically  from  the  extreme  conservatives  and  proceed  to 
develop  new  social  principles  and  methods  as  the  real 
patriots  of  every  other  age  have  done. 

Patriotic  thought  defined  by  the  mind  of  the  conserva- 
tive, and  patriotic  thought  as  it  exists  in  the  mind  of  the 
progressionist,  are  two  very  different  things.  The  one 
teaches  that  a  true  patriot  will  maintain  unmodified  all 
the  existing  institutions  of  his  country  because  they  were 
established  by  the  patriots  of  a  preceding  era,  and  that 
the  quantity  of  patriotism  in  every  man's  nature  is  meas- 
ured by  the  amount  of  unquestioning  reverence  he  dis- 
plays for  those  principles  already  established  in  the  laws 
of  his  country  and  handed  down  by  preceding  generations. 
Conservative  patriotism  is  mainly  characterized  by  the 
patriot's  thinking  and  saying  nothing  about  the  equity  of 
social  relations  for  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  days  in  the 
year,  and  by  his  participating  for  one  day  in  the  stereo- 
typed forms  of  celebrating  the  Fourth  of  July,  with  its  fire- 
crackers and  flags,  its  patriotic  songs  and  brass  bands, 
and  its  reading  of  a  Declaration  very  appropriate  to  the 
particular  forms  that  tyranny  assumed  one  hundred  years 
ago  among  a  people  dead  and  buried.  Conservative 
patriotism  loudly  declaims  with  great  enthusiasm  an  ora- 


432  KING  MAMMON. 

tion  replete  with  allusions  to  the  really  great  men — the 
truly  brave  and  patriotic  spirits  of  the  past — whose  pa- 
triotism did  not  consist  in  devoutly  admiring  the  patriotic 
deeds  performed  in  the  century  preceding  their  own  ex- 
istence, but  in  earnest  efforts  to  improve  the  social  insti- 
tutions of  their  own  day,  and  to  ameliorate  the  condi- 
tion of  their  contemporaries.  Conservative  patriotism 
reveres  heroes,  but  is  not  heroic.  It  vociferously  ap- 
plauds the  past  performance  of  public  duty,  but  contains 
no  suggestion  that  we  of  the  present  have  any  higher 
duties  to  perform  than  merely  those  of  sitting  still  and 
admiring  the  patriotism  of  dead  men  who  were  the  pro- 
gressionists of  a  preceding  era. 

Such  conservative  patriotism  is  the  form  that  is  enunci- 
ated in  the  words  of  a  famous  American  x  who  delivered 
an  address  in  Chicago  on  the  natal  day  of  the  Republic  to 
twenty  thousand  people,  when  he  said  : 

"  In  America  no  one  is  born  to  power  ;  no  one  is  assured 
of  station  or  command  except  by  his  own  worth  or  use- 
fulness. It  has  long  been  demonstrated  that  the  phi- 
losophy of  Jefferson  is  true Working  men  of 

Chicago,  let  me  adjure  you  to  be  faithful  to  the  acts,  tradi- 
tions, and  teachings  of  the  fathers.  Make  their  standard 
of  patriotism  and  duty  your  own." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  concentrate  into  brief  utterance 
a  greater  quantity  of  absurd  thought  than  untrammeled 
investigation  will  expose  in  these  assertions,  honestly 
uttered  by  the  eminent  speaker,  and  honestly  approved 
by  a  very  large  portion  of  the  people  in  this  country.  Its 
expression  is  an  illustration  of  the  force  of  habit,  custom, 
and  the  perpetual  tendency  to  accept  sound  for  sense. 
In  the  first  place,  as  these  pages  have  shown,  many 
people  are  continually  born  in  America  to  "power,  station, 

i  William  McKinley. 


KING   MAMMON.  433 

and  command "  by  succession  to  wealth,  and  only  the 
stupid  subservience  to  the  survival  of  ancient  ideas  pre- 
vents us  from  seeing  the  wrong  condition,  just  as  the 
same  subservience  once  prevented  men  from  seeing  the 
wrong  in  succession  to  political  supremacy.  In  the 
second  place,  it  is  undeniable  that  men  succeed  every 
day  to  wealth-positions  to  which  no  "worth  or  useful- 
ness" of  their  own  entitles  them.  In  the  third  place, 
we  are  now  and  have  long  been  conducting  our  social 
and  political  institutions  directly  contrary  to  Thomas 
Jefferson's  philosophy,1  for  we  are  governed,  not  by  our 
own  constitution,  but  by  the  constitution  which  men 
made  one  hundred  years  ago,  tying  the  hands  of  future 
generations,  meanwhile,  with  ropes  of  straw  so  that  the 
constitution  might  not  be  changed  readily  to  accommo- 
date the  interests  of  those  who  should  live  under  it.  We 
are  also  permitting  dead  men  to  control  the  living  in  a 
way  that  is  directly  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  Jefferson's 
teachings,  although  the  application  of  his  philosophy  made 
in  this  volume  may  not  have  occurred  to  him  in  that 
form  when  he  attacked  the  privilege  of  entail.  In  the 
fourth  place,  the  student  of  history  can  only  say,  God 
pity  those  people  who  remain  faithful  to  the  "acts, 
traditions,  and  teachings"  of  their  fathers,  and  who 
"  make  their  standard  of  patriotism  and  duty  "  the  gauge 
with  which  to  measure  the  moral  conceptions  of  the 
present  or  the  future.  Do  the  American  people  desire  the 
civilization  of  the  Chinese  and  the  Hindus,  stagnated 
under  the  worship  of  their  ancestors  ?  Do  they  approve 
to-day  the  standard  of  patriotism  and  duty  by  which  the 
men  who  established  this  government  recognized  slavery 
in  the  Constitution,  preached  its  divinity  in  the  pulpit, 
defended  its  morality  in  the  forum,  declared  its  justice 
on  the  bench,  and  developed  its  degrading  iniquities  in 

1  See  Appendix. 
28 


434  KING   MAMMON. 

their  own  homes  ?  If  men  of  preceding  centuries  had 
accepted  standards  of  the  past  as  gauges  for  the  present, 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race  would  now  be  tribes  of  naked 
savages  entertaining  no  higher  sentiments  of  social  duty 
than  those  which  filled  the  minds  of  the  American  Indians 
whom  we  have  displaced. 

The  people  of  every  age  must  develop  their  own 
morality  and  they  will  inevitably  do  so  in  spite  of  absurd 
directions  to  make  the  defective  standards  of  preceding 
ages  their  own. 

The  same  imperfect  conception  of  the  real  condition 
of  the  American  people  is  displayed  by  a  recent  writer " 
for  a  periodical  intended  for  circulation  among  the  culti- 
vated minds  of  America,  presumably  the  leaders  of 
advanced  thought.  This  author  reflects  the  complacent 
conservative  sentiment  that  our  ancestors  have  accom- 
plished about  all  the  progress  of  which  human  beings  are 
capable,  by  the  assertions  expressed  in  the  following  sen- 
tences : 

"The  fact  that  we  have  no  royal  family,  no  hereditary 
nobility,  in  this  country,  is  one  that  we  delight  to  pro- 
claim as  the  chief  glory  of  our  political  system.  Here 
all  citizens  have  equal  rights  and  privileges,  incentives 
and  opportunities." 

Such  expressions  illustrate  the  almost  universal  habit 
of  accepting  forms  for  realities  and  of  repeating  common 
assertions  without  independent  thought  and  investigation. 
Because  the  wealthy  families  of  this  country,  already 
well  established  as  an  aristocracy  under  the  principle  of 
succession  to  wealth-privilege,  do  not  bear  the  mere 
empty  and  useless  titles  of  Prince,  Duke,  or  Marquis, 
this  writer,  like  the  ostrich  with  his  head  covered,  believes 
that  sufficient  protection  from  the  danger  of  privileged 

1  Henry  King  in  Chautauquan  for  July,  1895. 


KING   MAMMON.  435 

classes  is  guaranteed.  When  we  remember  that  the 
power  of  controlling  unearned  wealth  has  been  the  basis 
of  every  aristocracy  that  ever  existed,  and  that  it  is  not 
the  title  but  the  wealth  which  has  always  given  to  aris- 
tocracy its  power,  its  tyranny,  its  luxury,  and  its  vice, 
the  complacent  assertion  here  quoted  becomes  an  uninten- 
tional insult  to  the  intelligence  and  patriotism  of  the 
progressive  American.  The  people  of  this  country  do 
not  have  equal  rights  and  privileges,  incentives  and 
opportunities,  and  they  never  can  possess  them  till  the 
ancient  savage  doctrine  of  succession  to  the  position  of 
owner  is  abolished  as  well  as  the  other  custom  of  succes- 
sion to  direct  political  power. 

The  people  may  not  generally  acknowledge  these  truths 
at  present,  but  they  will  be  admitted  sooner  or  later,  for  the 
unearned  and  unmerited  power  involved  in  succession 
to  fortunes  is  doomed  by  rapidly  developing  moral  senti- 
ment. The  intense  conservatives  who  desire  nothing 
but  the  retention  of  existing  conditions,  and  who  dread 
any  kind  of  a  change,  may  derive  temporary  consolation 
from  reading  of  Mark  Twain's  visit  to  the  court  of  King 
Arthur,  where  the  Yankee,  fearful  that  his  auditors  "might 
put  this  and  that  together,"  remarks  of  a  rash  assertion 
made  by  him  in  the  presence  of  some  conservatives  of 
the  fifth  century  as  follows  : 

"I  worried  over  that  heedless  blunder  for  an  hour  and 
called  myself  a  great  many  hard  names,  meantime.  But 
finally  it  occurred  to  me,  all  of  a  sudden,  that  these 
animals  didn't  reason  ;  that  they  never  put  this  and  that 
together  ;  that  all  their  talk  showed  that  they  didn't  know 
a  discrepancy  when  they  saw  it.  I  was  at  rest  then. " 

The  man  who  dreads  rapid  public  action  in  the  present 
day  may  also  rest,  for  there  is  much  doubt  whether  the 
animals  of  the  present  era  will  know  a  discrepancy  when 


436  KING   MAMMON. 

they  see  it,  or  abandon  their  contests  over  the  different 
kinds  of  money  to  be  used,  or  the  exact  amount  of  tariff 
to  be  levied,  long  enough  to  thoughtfully  consider  real 
conditions.  Most  of  them  are  not  searching  for  dis- 
crepancies but  are  looking  for  money.  According  to 
Mark's  philosophy,  deduced  from  his  association  with 
King  Arthur's  people, 

"  Inherited  ideas  are  a  curious  thing,  and  interesting  to 
observe  and  examine.  I  had  mine,  the  king  and  his 
people  had  theirs.  In  both  cases  they  flowed  in  ruts 
worn  deep  by  time  and  habit,  and  the  man  who  should 
have  proposed  to  divert  them  by  reason  and  argument 
would  have  had  a  long  contract  on  his  hands.  For 
instance,  those  people  had  inherited  the  idea  that  all  men 
without  title  and  a  long  pedigree,  whether  they  had 
great  natural  gifts  or  acquirements  or  hadn't,  were 
creatures  of  no  more  consideration  than  so  many  animals, 
bugs  and  insects  ;  whereas,  I  had  inherited  the  idea  that 
human  daws,  who  can  consent  to  masquerade  in  the 
peacock  shams  of  inherited  dignity  and  unearned  titles, 
are  of  no  good  but  to  be  laughed  at." 

And,  for  another  instance,  a  large  portion  of  the  exist- 
ing people  of  this  country  (of  which  portion  the  Connecti- 
cut Yankee  who  went  to  King  Arthur's  court  may  be  one) 
have  inherited  the  idea  that  American  institutions  are 
greatly  superior  to  European  institutions  because  our 
aristocracy  has  no  titles  nor  heraldry,  and  only  a  short 
pedigree  corresponding  with  the  age  of  the  country.  They 
have  inherited  the  idea  that  the  title  of  a  duke  and  not  the 
power  of  controlling  a  dukedom  constitutes  aristocratic 
privilege.  Having  this  absurd  conception  of  class  pri- 
vilege, the  people  of  the  present  worship  the  shadows  of 
equal  rights  instead  of  their  substance,  and  are  only  a  little 
more  rational  than  the  grown-up  children  who  worshiped 
v'peacock-shams"  in  the  days  of  King  Arthur.  The  man 
who  attempts  to  disturb  the  comfortable  habits  of  con- 


KING   MAMMON.  437 

servatism  in  either  the  ninth  or  the  nineteenth  century 
has,  indeed,  taken  a  large  contract  on  his  hands. 

Yet  it  is  well  to  inquire  what  sort  of  men  patriots  have 
been  and  what  the  real  patriotism  of  the  present  must  be. 
In  English  history  we  have  Hampden,  Pym,  and  Crom- 
well, men  whose  memories  are  now  cherished  as  those 
of  true  friends  to  their  country.  Yet  their  patriotic  deeds 
consisted  of  active  and  persistent  opposition  to  the  exist- 
ing political  and  social  institutions  of  the  age  in  which 
they  lived.  Their  creed  was  the  "  gospel  of  discontent," 
and  they  were  progressionists  who  bitterly  contested  the 
divine  right  of  barbarous  institutions  to  repress  human 
liberty.  They  were  not  the  conservative  patriots  of  their 
period,  for  these  were  represented  by  the  adherents  of 
tyrannical  Charles  I. 

Before  the  American  Revolution,  Washington  and 
Jefferson  were  subjects  of  the  English  king,  yet  their 
patriotism  was  not  displayed  in  the  conservation  of  exist- 
ing laws  and  social  institutions.  They  were  rebels 
turned  against  what  they  believed  to  be  tyranny  in  the 
established  laws  and  government  of  their  country. 
Instead  of  looking  backward  at  the  deeds  of  Pym  and 
Hampden,  they  looked  forward  to  emancipation  from 
such  tyranny  as  had  escaped  the  attacks  of  the  earlier 
patriots.  Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  citizen  of  this  country 
did  not  raise  his  eyes  in  blind  adulation  to  the  institu- 
tions formulated  by  Washington  and  Jefferson,  and  did 
not  accept  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  as 
infallibly  correct  in  all  its  provisions  because  other 
patriots  wrote  it.  He  did  not  refuse  to  see  the  evils  of 
slavery  because  many  of  the  early  patriots  were  slave- 
owners, and  because  the  Constitution  established  sla- 
very as  one  condition  of  "free"  institutions.  Abraham 
Lincoln  never  went  through  this  nation  proclaiming  con- 
servative patriotism  in  the  style  of  the  customary  oration 


438  KING   MAMMON. 

on  the  Fourth  of  July,  with  his  eyes  bandaged  so  that  he 
might  not  see  the  actual  evils  by  which  he  was  sur- 
rounded. 

The  conservative  teachers  define  patriotism  as  rever- 
ence for  existing  institutions,  and  they  would  enshrine 
for  worship  every  stale  and  worn-out  tradition  and  cus- 
tom of  a  barbarous  ancestry.  Conservatism  has  preached 
lies  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  and  has  taught  from  the 
theory  that  the  law  of  progress  was  suspended  when  the 
conservative  reached  earth.  The  true  patriot  has  never 
been  a  conservative.  The  real  love  of  country  has 
always  been  a  sincere  desire  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
its  foremost  thinkers  for  more  liberty,  greater  equality, 
and  better  morality  ;  and,  furthermore,  for  that  departure 
from  the  precedents  established  by  our  more  savage 
ancestry,  by  which  those  improvements  can  alone  be 
effected.  Patriotism  means  progress,  and  the  real  tyrants 
of  every  age  are  the  men  who  in  the  name  of  country 
inflict  the  barbaric  institutions  of  preceding  ages  upon 
other  men  whose  development  of  mind  and  moral  sense 
has  prepared  them  for  better  laws  and  customs,  and  who 
instinctively  revolt  against  institutions  that  to  their  im- 
proved perceptions  seem  no  longer  endurable.  The  real 
patriot  is  inevitably  cursed  and  reviled  during  the  era  in 
which  he  lives,  and  honored  by  succeeding  generations  ; 
for  he  is  a  man  somewhat  in  advance  of  his  associates 
in  moral  thought,  detested  by  undeveloped  contempo- 
raries who  do  not  understand  him,  but  honored,  sooner 
or  later,  by  all  who  in  the  moral  progress  of  society 
eventually  reach  the  stage  to  which  he  had  previously 
arrived.  Jefferson  was  execrated  by  many  of  his  asso- 
ciates. The  memory  of  Thomas  Paine  is  still  a  horror 
to  the  timorous  mind  of  the  religious  conservative,  yet 
Paine  was  as  sturdy  a  patriot  as  Jefferson,  though  his 
nature  was  not  so  nobly  pure  and  tolerant.  Abraham 


KING   MAMMON.  439 

Lincoln  was  bitterly  denounced  and  finally  assassinated. 
In  the  future  progress  of  this  nation,  therefore,  let  not 
the  true  patriot — the  man  whose  memory  will  be  revered 
one  hundred  years  later — suppose  that  his  declarations 
will  be  received  with  the  honor  their  merit  deserves. 
Such  tribute  of  contemporary  appreciation  and  praise  for 
the  genuinely  patriotic  thought  has  never  been  accorded 
in  history.  Cromwell  was  hated  by  the  Cavaliers,  Wash- 
ington by  the  Tories,  Lincoln  by  the  Copperheads  ;  and 
the  patriots  of  the  future  will  also  suffer  denunciation  by 
the  same  kind  of  people,  a  century  behind  the  progress- 
ionists in  their  moral  and  social  instincts.  There  can  be 
no  patriotism  without  fighting  social  wrongs,  and  the 
patriot  must  be  content  to  wait  for  future  generations  to 
unanimously  approve  his  motives. 

If  then  we  would  be  patriots  equal  in  spirit  if  not  in 
ability  to  the  great  men  who  have  preceded  us,  let  us 
do  even  as  they  did.  Let  us  not  gaze  in  servile  admira- 
tion at  the  patriotic  work  already  established  in  social 
institutions,  but  let  us  inquire  what  improvement 
remains  to  be  accomplished  by  our  efforts.  So  long  as 
men  shall  exist  there  will  still  remain  new  work  for 
patriots  to  do,  for  perfection  is  not  obtainable  on  earth. 
Human  institutions  were  not  perfected  when  we  arrived  on 
earth  ;  they  will  not  be  perfect  when  we  shall  have  gone. 
The  real  duty  of  the  patriotic  citizen  is  not  to  blindly  con- 
tend for  the  maintenance  of  established  institutions,  but  to 
thoughtfully  and  earnestly  inquire  whether  those  institu- 
tions are  equitable,  and  to  lend  his  assistance  in  their  mod- 
ification according  to  the  moral  light  that  may  have  been 
given  to  him,  for  only  thus  can  he  work  in  consonance  with 
the  universal  law  of  progress.  Every  habit  and  custom 
of  the  human  race  (of  which  our  laws  and  governments 
are  merely  the  formal  enunciation,  all  depending  upon 
the  intellectual  and  moral  condition  of  the  social  units) 


440  KING   MAMMON. 

has  been  developed  and  modified  or  even  abandoned  as 
the  race  progressed  toward  its  destiny.  Social  growth 
toward  its  highest  point,  whatever  that  may  be,  is  not 
suspended  during  the  lives  of  those  people  now  in  exist- 
ence. It  is  probable  that  social  institutions  one  thousand 
years  in  the  future  will  be  morally  and  materially  as 
different  from  our  own  as  ours  are  different  from  those 
maintained  by  the  barbarous  Europeans  of  the  eighth 
century.  We  must  be  progressionists,  therefore,  whether 
we  desire  progress  or  not,  and  it  is  better  to  wisely  assist 
the  onward  journey  than  to  foolishly  obstruct  it. 

It  will  be  observed  by  the  thoughtful  reader,  who  has 
followed  the  argument  thus  far,  that  the  essential  prin- 
ciples which  the  author  desires  to  establish  are  two  :  the 
right  of  every  human  being  to  a  fair  opportunity  to  labor 
in  order  that  he  may  produce  his  own  sustenance,  and 
the  wrong  involved  in  all  claims  to  wealth  that  are  not 
based  upon  some  form  of  productive  effort.  These  prin- 
ciples involve  the  denunciation  of  bequests,  inheritance, 
and  aristocracies,  whether  the  latter  be  found  among 
parasitical  princes  or  paupers,  for  there  is  little  difference 
in  the  moral  responsibility  of  demanding  something  for 
nothing,  whether  that  thing  be  obtained  by  the  wheat, 
gold,  or  card  gambler  ;  the  idle  successor  to  some  other 
man's  accumulations  transferred  at  his  death ;  the  chival- 
rous highwayman  who  makes  a  traveler  surrender  his 
purse  and  returns  his  watch  with  a  bow  ;  or  the  nuisance 
of  our  lowest  levels,  who  will  beg  before  he  will  steal, 
and  steal  before  he  will  work.  All  are  parasites  upon 
the  social  body,  and  the  only  real  difference  between  the 
various  classes  is  that  some  of  them  excite  intense 
irritation,  while  others  do  not.  Yet  the  actual  harm  to 
society  that  is  inflicted  by  the  existence  of  the  tramp  or 
the  highwayman  is  probably  much  less  than  the  injury 
inflicted  by  a  great  gambler  in  the  stock  exchange,  or  by 


KING    MAMMON.  44! 

one  of  the  remarkable  young  men  who  in  England  in- 
herit much  idle  time  with  their  fortunes,  and  use  it  in 
studying  Oscar  Wildeism. 

Every  argument  that  can  be  made  for  the  existing  sys- 
tem of  wealth  succession  must  be  founded  either  upon  the 
absolutely  unjust  and  selfish  desire  of  prolonging  our  con- 
trol of  wealth  beyond  the  grave,  or  upon  the  theory  that 
human  beings  are  entitled  to  obtain  something  for  nothing 
by  receiving  what  they  never  produced,  and  thereafter 
retaining  that  result  of  other  people's  exertions  in  the  form 
of  a  power  and  possession  that  confers  upon  the  successors, 
to  the  extent  of  its  value,  a  species  of  domination  over 
their  fellow-creatures',  and  especially  over  those  who  hap- 
pen to  be  poorer.  Men  may  not  be  immediately  prepared 
to  admit  the  injustice  involved  in  both  of  these  claims,  but 
it  is  only  a  matter  of  time  and  careful  consideration  when 
our  existing  relics  of  tyranny  in  the  ancient  family  govern- 
ment will  be  entirely  abandoned.  Under  the  light  of 
modern  ideas,  the  absurdity  of  wealth  succession,  like  the 
other  absurdity  of  political  succession,  becomes  so  conspic- 
uous when  thoroughly  exposed,  that  it  is  certain  to  give 
way  before  the  same  moral  influences  that  destroyed  the 
tyranny  of  the  other  condition. 

At  the  present  time,  society  is  involved  in  the  inconsist- 
ency of  crediting  the  heir  with  all  the  desirable  remnants 
of  his  ancestor's  existence,  and  not  of  charging  him  with 
its  undesirable  features.  The  heir  succeeds  to  all  the  net 
wealth  of  the  decedent,  but  if  the  latter  should  unfortu- 
nately leave  behind  him  merely  a  parcel  of  debts,  society 
does  not  require  the  successor  to  pay  them.  Now  it 
would  seem  to  any  reasonable  being,  that  if  the  heir  has 
any  moral  right  to  succeed  to  his  ancestor's  wealth,  he  is 
also  morally  bound  to  pay  that  ancestor's  debts,  no  matter 
whether  the  latter  leaves  any  property  or  not.  There  can 
be  no  such  thing  as  a  right  without  a  corresponding  duty, 


442  KING   MAMMON. 

according  to  our  present  conception  of  such  things.  Simi- 
larly, if  the  testator  has  any  right  to  bequeath  his  wealth 
to  a  survivor,  and  that  survivor  the  right  to  retain  the  be- 
quest, there  also  exists  the  duty  on  the  part  of  the  testa- 
tor of  bequeathing  his  debts  to  somebody  when  he  dies, 
and  the  duty  on  the  part  of  the  legatee  of  promptly  pay- 
ing them.  If  we  are  to  continue  to  have  successors  in 
their  application  to  wealth,  let  them  be  "universal  succes- 
sors "  in  even  a  more  rigid  sense  than  existed  under  the 
Roman  laws;  for,  if  the  life  of  every  individual  is  to  be 
continued  in  the  person  of  a  successor,  let  us  continue 
responsibilities  as  well  as  privileges.  Nature,  expressing 
eternal  truth,  is  more  consistent  in  her  laws  of  heredity, 
for  in  them  the  bad  and  the  good  go  down  honestly  to- 
gether, and  the  condition  is  not  the  gigantic  lie  that  men 
have  established  in  their  laws. 

Political  action  in  the  United  States  is  rapidly  taking  the 
form  of  an  investigation  of  the  causes  that  underlie  indus- 
trial depressions  and  the  attendant  social  evils  of  which 
men  are  now  complaining.  Because  many  of  these  evils 
are  as  old  as  history  the  superficial  observer,  who  so  fre- 
quently asserts  that  "human  nature  is  the  same  as  it  was 
two  thousand  years  ago,''  dismisses  the  whole  problem 
as  one  merely  involving  a  selfish  agitation,  not  seeing  the 
development  of  moral  sentiment  that  is  involved  in  the 
social  discontent.  Millions  of  human  beings  have  suffered 
and  even  starved  in  preceding  ages  under  the  beneficent 
rule  of  our  ancestors  which  deprived  them  continually  of 
rights  that  we  now  consider  sacred.  At  every  step  the 
unsuccessful  man  was  oppressed  or  neglected  under  the 
universal  customs  of  savage  or  barbarous  life,  without 
any  conception  existing  in  the  minds  of  his  associates  that 
they  owed  to  their  unfortunate  fellow-creature  any  duty 
except,  perhaps,  that  of  not  actually  murdering  him.  The 
wrong  of  not  affording  men  fair  opportunities  has  always 


KING   MAMMON.  443 

existed,  but  in  the  minds  of  our  ancestors  that  wrong  was 
right,  and  humanity  of  the  present  only  dimly  perceives 
evil  in  conditions  which  men  of  the  future  will  denounce 
as  bitterly  as  we  now  condemn  slavery. 

In  their  moral  perceptions  the  men  of  the  present  are 
like  the  blind  from  birth  who  receive  sight  for  the  first  time, 
their  physician  being  the  progress  of  the  race.  They  are 
greatly  dazzled  by  the  unfamiliar  rays,  and  many  whose 
eyes  are  not  yet  opened,  still  contend  that  any  social  pro- 
vision by  which  the  unfortunates  may  be  permitted  to 
earn  a  living  instead  of  starving  in  the  good,  old  barbarous 
fashion,  is  contrary  to  a  correct  theory  of  government  and 
tending  toward  what  they  call  paternalism.  Others  per- 
ceive the  injustice  by  which  men  are  denied  the  right  to 
earn  their  own  living  in  the  midst  of  abundant  social 
wealth,  but  the  flood  of  light  has  confused  them  to  such 
an  extent  that  they  are  likely  to  destroy  the  social  fabric 
in  their  efforts  to  remodel  it.  Changes  in  the  money  of 
the  nation  are  demanded,  and  people  rank  themselves  as 
silver  men,  gold  men,  or  even  paper  men,  as  though  a 
myriad  of  additional  yardsticks  or  that  many  more  pound 
weights  would  really  tend  to  equalize  human  opportuni- 
ties or  affect  the  rights  of  men  in  the  planet  they  inhabit. 
The  people  of  the  United  States  have  served  Mammon  so 
assiduously  that  money  in  their  minds  seems  to  be  the 
cause  of  wealth  instead  of  its  result,  and  men  made  for 
coin,  instead  of  coin  for  men.  All  political  problems  are 
worthy  of  consideration,  but  it  should  be  evident  to  any 
person  who  studies  the  problems  discussed  in  this  book, 
that  no  matter  how  the  people  of  the  United  States  change 
their  tariff,  whether  they  absolutely  bar  out  foreign  prod- 
ducts  or  admit  them  free ;  no  matter  whether  they  have 
for  money,  gold,  silver,  or  paper  ;  whether  they  have  all  of 
these  materials  in  unlimited  quantities,  so  that  every  in- 
dustrious man  with  opportunities  could  soon  obtain  a  mil- 


444  KING   MAMMON. 

lion  of  depreciated  dollars,  or  whether  they  abolish  all 
kinds  of  money,  and  exchange  their  productions  without  it  ; 
no  matter  whether  they  bar  out  every  foreigner  from  our 
shores,  or  admit  all,  including  the  Chinese ;  no  matter 
whether  the  people  own  the  railroads,  or  the  corporations 
own  the  people  ; — the  truth  still  remains  that  men  will 
continue  to  come  into  the  world  and  go  out  of  it  by  birth 
and  death.  Some  children  under  the  present  system  will 
be  born  to  inherit  wealth  which  exists  independently  of  its 
mere  representative  and  measure  in  the  form  of  money, 
and  others  will  inherit  rags  and  poverty  and  their  own 
two  hands,  for  the  use  of  which  no  adequate  opportunity 
is  given  to  them  to  carve  out  a  noble  human  existence. 
Wealth  and  opportunities  for  making  wealth  become  mo- 
nopolized by  human  greed,  the  inevitable  over-production 
of  insane  human  effort  is  succeeded  by  the  equally  inev- 
itable cessation  from  activity  in  the  industrial  depression, 
and  the  world  is  filled  with  discontent  because  men  have 
imagined  that  human  happiness  is  to  be  secured  by  the 
mere  accumulation  of  those  things  we  eat  and  wear.  The 
new  progress  of  society  will  not  be  accomplished  by  de- 
manding more  tariff,  more  trade,  more  money,  or  more 
wealth  in  any  form  that  a  mysterious  creative  power  has 
conferred  upon  weak  humanity,  for  there  exists  no  balm 
for  social  irritation  except  in  thinking  more  and  more  of 
human  rights  and  less  of  human  wealth.  Internecine 
war  to  the  death  is  before  our  people  unless  they  attain  to 
higher  ideals  than  the  worship  of  gold  and  silver  and  pa- 
per money. 

To  justly  conceive  the  real  nature  of  society,  let  us 
average  the  ages  of  all  people  now  existing  in  this  nation, 
and  consider  that  they  were  all  born  at  the  same  instant 
and  are  now  thirty-five  years  of  age.  Consolidate  all  the 
ancestors  of  these  people,  who  have  lived  since  the  dawn 
of  civilization,  into  a  single  individual  who  died  just 


KING   MAMMON.  445 

thirty-five  years  ago,  when  we,  his  children,  as  average 
existing  humanity  came  into  the  world.  As  children  of 
the  dead  past,  we  are  naturally  and  justly  equal  heirs, 
but  to  some  the  dying  father  has  given  wealth  and  lux- 
ury ;  to  others  of  his  children,  rags  and  poverty.  With 
this  general  view  of  human  existence  on  earth  as  the 
basis,  now  make  a  proper  allowance  for  individual  efforts 
and  the  real  nature  of  the  human  family,  and  decide,  my 
reader,  before  you  close  this  volume,  whether,  in  your 
inmost  heart,  you  feel  that  social  institutions  of  to-day 
are  just.  In  its  final  analysis,  the  question  for  every 
man  to  determine  is  whether  Adam,  as  the  historically 
first  occupant  and  owner  of  earth,  had  any  right  to  leave 
that  property  to  "his  heirs  and  assigns  forever,"  in  the 
language  of  our  deeds,  those  heirs  being  embodied  in 
only  a  few  of  his  many  descendants,  or  whether  all  the 
people  from  time  to  time  own  it  equally,  so  far  as  mere 
succession  is  concerned,  as  entirely  distinct  from  produc- 
tive effort.  Silly  as  such  a  question  will  appear  to  intelli- 
gent men  in  that  form,  they  have  really  been  for  years 
approving  the  doctrine  that  Adam  and  his  delegated 
representatives,  or  other  successors,  have  justly  a  perpet- 
ual control  of  this  planet,  no  matter  what  inconvenience 
its  other  inhabitants  may  suffer  on  account  of  such  claims 
transmitted  by  heredity. 

Will  the  people  of  the  United  States  carefully  consider 
the  real  nature  of  property  and  the  doctrine  of  heredity 
that  is  now  applied  to  it?  Will  they  lead  the  world  in 
another  declaration  of  independence,  and  establish  the 
principle  that  there  shall  no  longer  exist  heredity  of 
wealth,  as  their  forefathers  declared  that  there  should  no 
longer  exist  heredity  of  political  privilege  and  power  ? 
Will  they  firmly  establish  the  later  doctrines  of  the  rights 
of  man  that  are  being  trampled  under  the  feet  of  King 
Mammon,  or  will  they  permit  the  continuance  in  this 


446  KING   MAMMON. 

country  of  institutions  that  can  only  produce  among  us 
the  same  disheartening,  God-forsaken  condition  of  cor- 
rupt aristocracy  and  class  rule  that  have  existed  in  every 
European  nation  ?  The  people  must  answer  from  their 
moral  consciousness  ;  if  they  remain  tyrants  at  heart,  we 
shall  still  retain  tyranny  in  our  social  institutions.  Our 
people  can  do  justice  if  they  will. 

One  stern  fact  should  be  impressed  on  all,  be  they  rich 
or  poor  :  The  only  possible  result  of  a  continuance  in 
our  present  wealth  conditions,  with  their  tendency  toward 
the  creation  of  hereditary  aristocracy,  will  be  civil  war, 
the  destruction  of  lives  and  property,  and  the  wasteful 
and  inequitable  distribution  by  the  sacrifices  to  our  war- 
god  of  the  vast  fortunes  that  are  now  being  accumulated. 
Such  has  been  the  usual  record  of  history,  and  we  can- 
not comfort  ourselves  with  the  hope  that  similar  conditions 
will  not  produce  that  result  in  our  own  country.  We 
cannot  maintain  a  perpetual  lie  in  our  social  institutions 
and  expect  good  to  come  of  it ;  for,  sooner  or  later, 
nature  sets  things  right  again  by  a  spasm  of  self-adjust- 
ment. If  there  be  no  change  in  the  nature  of  our  laws, 
to  afford  a  relief  for  the  rapidly  developing  bitterness  of 
discontent,  it  may  burst  forth  any  day  under  the  excite- 
ment of  special  aggravation,  into  the  calamity  of  violent 
revolution,  attended  by  the  tramp  of  armed  men,  the 
flames  of  burning  houses,  the  din  of  battle,  the  horrors  of 
life-destruction,  and  all  the  fearful  privations  and  suffer- 
ing that  appal  the  stoutest  heart  when  every  man's 
neighbor  becomes  his  deadly  foe.  With  renewed  busi- 
ness activity,  which  now  seems  to  be  rapidly  developing, 
there  will  be  less  discontent  among  the  people,  but  the 
nation  will  suffer  other  industrial  depressions  in  the 
future.  Meanwhile,  let  us  consider.  Is  it  not  wiser  and 
better  and  safer  to  leave  to  all  children  who  may  succeed 
us  in  the  control  of  our  earthly  home,  the  heritage  of 


KING   MAMMON.  447 

just,  and  therefore  safe  government,  wherein  all  may 
enjoy  fair  opportunities  and  equal  rights,  with  the  assur- 
ance, so  far  as  men  can  provide,  of  a  comfortable  and 
happy  existence,  than  it  is  to  bestow  upon  a  few  of  them 
the  heritage  of  great  wealth,  with  all  its  manifold  dan- 
gers, and  upon  the  others  a  heritage  of  poverty  and  sub- 
jection that  may  convert  them  into  destructive  social 
wolves  clutching  at  the  throats  of  their  keepers  ?  The 
people  of  this  nation  have  for  thirty  years  been  absorbed 
in  sordid  devotions  ;  will  they  now  think  of  social  wel- 
fare and  of  duty  to  their  fellow-creatures  ? 


APPENDIX. 

THE  annexed  extract  from  a  letter  addressed  to  James 
Madison  embodies  the  substance  of  Thomas  Jefferson's 
ideas  upon  the  rights  of  men  in  society.  In  that  period, 
even  his  daring  mind  feared  to  announce  them  in  public 
lest  they  should  be  misunderstood,  and  they  were  usually 
expressed  in  private  letters  to  his  friends.  It  is  a  curious 
commentary  on  popular  intelligence  that  the  doctrines  of 
Jefferson,  whom  we  all  justly  revere,  should  bear  a  very 
close  resemblance  to  the  ideas  of  the  modern  anarchists 
whom  we  so  bitterly  condemn.  Although  Jefferson's 
nature  was  one  of  the  purest  and  grandest  ever  given  to 
man,  no  anarchist  that  ever  threw  a  bomb  hated  tyranny 
more  than  the  famous  author  of  the  Declaration.  It  is 
quite  possible  too,  that  if  his  attempts  to  free  this  country 
from  English  domination  had  been  less  successful,  he 
would  have  died  exactly  as  anarchists  do  now.  It  is  one 
thing  to  be  a  rebel  against  society  ;  it  is  another  thing  to 
be  a  successful  rebel. 

CAN  ONE  GENERATION  BIND  ANOTHER  ? 

PARIS,  SEPTEMBER  6,  1789. 

*        *         *        * 

The  question  whether  one  generation  of  men  has  a 
right  to  bind  another,  seems  never  to  have  been  started 
either  on  this  or  our  side  of  the  water.  Yet  it  is  a 
question  of  such  consequences  as  not  only  to  merit  de- 
cision, but  place  also  among  the  fundamental  principles 
of  every  government.  The  course  of  reflection  in  which 
we  are  immersed  here,  on  the  elementary  principles  of 
29  449 


450  APPENDIX. 

society,  has  presented  this  question  to  my  mind ;  and 
that  no  such  obligation  can  be  so  transmitted,  I  think 
very  capable  of  proof.  I  set  out  on  this  ground,  which 
I  suppose  to  be  self-evident,  that  the  earth  belongs  in 
usufruct  to  the  living  ;  that  the  dead  have  neither  powers 
nor  rights  over  it.  The  portion  occupied  by  any  indi- 
vidual ceases  to  be  his  when  himself  ceases  to  be,  and 
reverts  to  the  society.  If  the  society  has  formed  no  rules 
for  the  appropriation  of  its  lands  in  severalty,  it  will  be 
taken  by  the  first  occupants,  and  these  will  generally  be 
the  wife  and  children  of  the  decedent.  If  they  have 
formed  rules  of  appropriation,  those  rules  may  give  it  to 
the  wife  and  children,  or  to  some  one  of  them,  or  to  the 
legatee  of  the  deceased.  So  they  may  give  it  to  his 
creditors.  But  the  child,  the  legatee  or  creditor,  takes  it, 
not  by  natural  right,  but  by  a  law  of  the  society  of  which 
he  is  a  member,  and  to  which  he  is  subject.  Then,  no 
man  can,  by  natural  right,  oblige  the  lands  he  occupied, 
or  the  persons  who  succeed  him  in  that  occupation,  to  the 
payment  of  debts  contracted  by  him.  For  if  he  could,  he 
might  during  his  own  life  eat  up  the  usufruct  of  the 
lands  for  several  generations  to  come  ;  and  then  the  lands 
would  belong  to  the  dead,  and  not  to  the  living,  which 
is  the  reverse  of  our  principle. 

What  is  true  of  every  member  of  the  society,  individ- 
ually, is  true  of  them  all  collectively  ;  since  the  rights  of 
the  whole  can  be  no  more  than  the  sum  of  the  rights  of 
the  individuals.  To  keep  our  ideas  clear  when  applying 
them  to  a  multitude,  let  us  suppose  a  whole  generation 
of  men  to  be  born  on  the  same  day,  to  attain  mature  age 
on  the  same  day,  and  to  die  on  the  same  day,  leaving  a 
succeeding  generation  in  the  moment  of  attaining  their 
mature  age,  all  together.  Let  the  ripe  age  be  supposed 
of  twenty-one  years,  and  their  period  of  life  thirty-four 
years  more,  that  being  the  average  term  given  by  the 
bills  of  mortality  to  persons  of  twenty-one  years  of  age. 
Each  successive  generation  would,  in  this  way,  come 
and  go  off  the  stage  at  a  fixed  moment,  as  individuals  do 
now.  Then  I  say,  the  earth  belongs  to  each  of  these 
generations  during  its  course,  fully  and  in  its  own  right. 
The  second  generation  receives  it  clear  of  the  debts  and 
incumbrances  of  the  first,  the  third  of  the  second,  and  so 


APPENDIX.  451 

on.  For  if  the  first  could  charge  it  with  a  debt,  then  the 
earth  would  belong  to  the  dead  and  not  to  the  living 
generation.  Then,  no  generation  can  contract  debts 
greater  than  may  be  paid  during  the  course  of  its  own 
existence.  At  twenty-one  years  of  age,  they  may  bind 
themselves  and  their  lands  for  thirty-four  years  to  come  ; 
at  twenty-two,  for  thirty-three  ;  at  twenty-three  for 
thirty-two  ;  and  at  fifty-four,  for  one  year  only  ;  because 
these  are  the  terms  of  life  which  remain  to  them  at  the 
respective  epochs.  But  a  material  difference  must  be 
noted  between  the  succession  of  an  individual  and  that 
of  a  whole  generation.  Individuals  are  part  only  of  a 
society,  subject  to  the  laws  of  the  whole.  These  laws 
may  appropriate  the  portion  of  land  occupied  by  a  de- 
cedent, to  his  creditor  rather  than  to  any  other,  or  to  his 
child,  on  condition  he  satisfies  the  creditor.  But  when 
a  whole  generation,  that  is,  the  whole  society,  dies,  as 
in  the  case  we  have  supposed,  and  another  generation 
or  society  succeeds,  this  forms  a  whole,  and  there  is  no 
superior  who  can  give  their  territory  to  a  third  society, 
who  may  have  lent  money  to  their  predecessors,  be- 
yond their  faculties  of  paying. 

What  is  true  of  generations  succeeding  one  another  at 
fixed  epochs,  as  has  been  supposed  for  clearer  conception, 
is  true  for  those  renewed  daily,  as  in  the  actual  course  of 
nature.  As  a  majority  of  the  contracting  generation  will 
continue  in  being  thirty-four  years,  and  a  new  majority 
will  then  come  into  possession,  the  former  may  extend 
their  engagement  to  that  term,  and  no  longer.  The  con- 
clusion, then,  is,  that  neither  the  representatives  of  a 
nation,  nor  the  whole  nation  itself  assembled,  can  validly 
engage  debts  beyond  what  they  may  pay  in  their  own 
time,  that  is  to  say,  within  thirty-four  years  from  the  date 
of  the  engagement. 

To  render  this  conclusion  palpable,  suppose  that  Louis 
the  XIV  and  XV  had  contracted  debts  in  the  name  of  the 
French  nation,  to  the  amount  of  ten  thousand  milliards, 
and  that  the  whole  had  been  contracted  in  Holland.  The 
interest  of  this  sum  would  be  five  hundred  milliards,  which 
is  the  whole  rent-roll  or  net  proceeds  of  the  territory  of 
France.  Must  the  present  generation  of  men  have  retired 
from  the  territory  in  which  nature  produces  them,  and  cede 


452  APPENDIX. 

it  to  the  Dutch  creditors  ?  No  ;  they  have  the  same  rights 
over  the  soil  on  which  they  are  produced,  as  the  preced- 
ing generations  had.  They  derive  these  rights  not  from 
them,  but  from  nature.  They,  then,  and  their  soil  are, 
by  nature,  clear  of  the  debts  of  their  predecessors.  To 
present  this  in  another  point  of  view,  suppose  Louis  XV 
and  his  contemporary  generation  had  said  to  the  money- 
lenders of  Holland,  "Give  us  money,  that  we  may  eat, 
drink,  and  be  merry  in  our  day  ;  and  on  condition  you  will 
demand  no  interest  till  the  end  of  thirty-four  years,  you 
shall  then,  forever  after,  receive  an  annual  interest  of  fif- 
teen percent."  The  money  is  lent  on  these  conditions,  is 
divided  among  the  people,  eaten,  drunk,  and  squandered. 
Would  the  present  generation  be  obliged  to  apply  the  prod- 
uce of  the  earth  and  of  their  labor,  to  replace  their  dissi- 
pation ?  Not  at  all. 

I  suppose  that  the  received  opinion,  that  the  public  debts 
of  one  generation  devolve  on  the  next,  has  been  suggested 
by  our  seeing,  habitually,  in  private  life,  that  he  who  suc- 
ceeds to  lands  is  required  to  pay  the  debts  of  his  predeces- 
sor; without  considering  that  the  requisition  is  municipal 
only,  not  moral ;  flowing  from  the  will  of  the  society,  which 
has  found  it  convenient  to  appropriate  the  lands  of  a  dece- 
dent on  the  condition  of  a  payment  of  his  debts  :  but  that 
between  society  and  society,  or  generation  and  generation, 
there  is  no  municipal  obligation,  no  umpire  but  the  law  of 
nature. 

The  interest  of  the  national  debt  of  France  being,  in  fact, 
but  a  two-thousandth  part  of  its  rent-roll,  the  payment  of 
it  is  practicable  enough  ;  and  so  becomes  a  question  merely 
of  honor  or  of  expediency.  But  with  respect  to  future  debts, 
would  it  not  be  wise  and  just  for  that  nation  to  declare  in 
the  constitution  they  are  forming,  that  neither  the  legisla- 
ture nor  the  nation  itself,  can  validly  contract  more  debt 
than  they  may  pay  within  their  own  age,  or  within  the  term 
of  thirty-four  years  ?  And  that  all  future  contracts  shall  be 
deemed  void,  as  to  what  shall  remain  unpaid  at  the  end  of 
thirty-four  years  from  their  date?  This  would  put  the 
lenders,  and  the  borrowers  also,  on  their  guard.  By  reduc- 
ing, too,  the  faculty  of  borrowing  within  its  natural  limits, 
it  would  bridle  the  spirit  of  war,  to  which  too  free  a  course 
has  been  procured  by  the  inattention  of  moneylenders  to 


APPENDIX.  453 

this  law  of  nature,  that  succeeding  generations  are  not 
responsible  for  the  preceding. 

On  similar  ground  it  may  be  proved,  that  no  society  can 
make  a  perpetual  constitution,  or  even  a  perpetual  law. 
The  earth  belongs  always  to  the  living  generation  :  they 
may  manage  it,  then,  and  what  proceeds  from  it,  as  they 
please,  during  their  usufruct.  They  are  masters,  too,  of 
their  own  persons,  and  consequently  may  govern  them  as 
they  please.  But  persons  and  property  make  the  sum  of 
the  objects  of  government.  The  constitution  and  the  laws 
of  their  predecessors  are  extinguished  then,  in  their  natural 
course,  with  those  whose  will  gave  them  being.  This 
could  preserve  that  being  till  it  ceased  to  be  itself,  and  no 
longer.  Every  constitution,  then,  and  every  law,  natu- 
rally expires  at  the  end  of  thirty-four  years.  If  it  be  en- 
forced longer,  it  is  an  act  of  force,  and  not  of  right. 
It  may  be  said,  that  the  succeeding  generation  exercising, 
in  fact,  the  power  of  repeal,  this  leaves  them  as  free  as  if 
the  constitution  or  law  had  been  expressly  limited  to  thirty- 
four  years  only.  In  the  first  place,  this  objection  admits 
the  right,  in  proposing  an  equivalent.  But  the  power  of 
repeal  is  not  an  equivalent.  It  might  be,  indeed,  if  every 
form  of  government  were  so  perfectly  contrived,  that  the 
will  of  the  majority  could  always  be  obtained,  fairly  and 
without  impediment.  But  this  is  true  of  no  form.  The 
people  cannot  assemble  themselves  ;  their  representation 
is  unequal  and  vicious.  Various  checks  are  opposed  to 
every  legislative  proposition.  Factions  get  possession  of 
the  public  councils,  bribery  corrupts  them,  personal  inter- 
ests lead  them  astray  from  the  general  interests  of  their 
constituents  ;  and  other  impediments  arise,  so  as  to  prove 
to  every  practical  man  that  a  law  of  limited  duration  is 
much  more  manageable  than  one  which  needs  a  repeal. 

This  principle,  that  the  earth  belongs  to  the  living  and 
not  to  the  dead,  is  of  very  extensive  application  and  con- 
sequences in  every  country,  and  most  especially  in 
France.  It  enters  into  the  resolution  of  the  questions, 
whether  the  nation  may  change  the  descent  of  lands  holden 
in  tail ;  whether  they  may  change  the  appropriation  of 
lands  given  anciently  to  the  church,  to  hospitals,  colleges, 
orders  of  chivalry,  and  otherwise  in  perpetuity  ;  whether 
they  may  abolish  the  charges  and  privileges  attached  on 


454  APPENDIX. 

lands,  including  the  whole  catalogue,  ecclesiastical  and 
feudal ;  it  goes  to  hereditary  offices,  authorities,  and  juris- 
dictions, to  hereditary  orders,  distinctions,  and  appella- 
tions, to  perpetual  monopolies  in  commerce,  the  arts  or 
sciences,  with  a  long  train  of  et  celeras;  and  it  renders  the 
question  of  reimbursement  a  question  of  generosity  and 
not  of  right.  In  all  these  cases,  the  legislature  of  the  day 
could  authorize  such  appropriations  and  establishments 
for  their  own  time,  but  no  longer  ;  and  the  present  holders, 
even  where  they  or  their  ancestors  have  purchased,  are  in 
the  case  of  bona  fida  purchasers  of  what  the  seller  had  no 
right  to  convey.  ^  *  *  * 

THE  END. 


From  the  press  of  the  Arena  Publishing  Company. 


A  Stirring  Drama  of  liter-limes. 


flary 
Holland  Lee 


Price,  paper,  50  cents  ;  cloth,  $1.25. 
MARGARET  SALISBURY. 

The  setting  of  the  story  is  vivid  and  picturesque,  bridg- 
ing the  period  of  our  Civil  war,  and  its  touches  upon  New 
England  and  Virginia  life  are  full  of  local  color,  provincial 
phraseology  and  dramatic  power.  The  tale  opens  with  a 
description  of  Three  Oaks,  a  fine  Virginia  estate,  the  fate 
of  whose  owners  is  curiously  interwoven  with  the  three 
gigantic  trees  from  which  the  place  receives  its  name. 
Mrs.  Lee  strikes  the  note  of  heredity  firmly,  and  the  most 
tragic  complication  of  her  plot  hinges  upon  the  unlawful 
use  of  hypnotic  power.  The  world  of  books  is  far  too 
poor  in  well-told  stories  of  our  war,  to  accord  anything 
less  than  enthusiastic  welcome  to  this  latest  comer,  so  full 
of  rich  detail  and  striking  scenes  both  North  and  South, 
and  so  winning  in  the  even,  impartial  temper  with  which 
the  sad  struggles  of  the  great  Rebellion  are  incidentally 
set  forth.  It  will  attract  that  great  army  of  readers  which 
turns  to  books  for  amusement  and  distraction. 

"  Margaret  Salisbury "  is  the  brave  and  loyal  heroine  of  a 
stirring  drama  of  the  Civil  War.  Her  love  story  is  a  sad  one 
and  long  in  telling,  but  it  affords  the  author  opportunity  to  intro- 
duce pictures  of  Southern  life  in  anti-bellum  days  and  some 
startling  episodes  of  army  times.  The  sympathetic  interest  of 
the  reader  will  be  aroused  by  a  succession  of  unusual  incidents. 
—  Public  Opinion,  Washington,  D.  C. 

North  and  South,  their  people  and  principles,  are  the  text  of 
the  book.  The  slavery  question  is  treated  from  an  unprejudiced 
standpoint.  The  Negro,  Yankee  and  Southern  characters  are 
lifelike  under  skilful  moulding.  As  a  love  story  it  is  pure,  sim- 
ple, strong  and  pathetic. —  The  American  Newsman,  New  York 
City. 

"  Margaret  Salisbury "  is  a  story  of  the  war,  and  is  charm- 
ingly told.  Its  heroes  are  of  the  real  kind  who  believe  what 
they  profess  because  they  were  born  to  believe  so.  The  story  is 
enlivened  by  a  vein  of  rather  exquisite  humor  and  toned  up  by 
clean,  pure  and  healthy  sentiment,  altogether  furnishing  a  most 
entertaining  tale  of  heroic  times.  —  Kansas  City  Journal. 

For  sale  by  all  newsdealers,  or  sent  postpaid  by 

Arena  Publishing  Co.,  Boston,  Mass. 


A  Bundle  of  New  Books. 


Isfeui  Booh  of  Social  Chought.          JUST  PUBLISHED. 


B.O.  Flower 


The  Social 
Factors  at  Work 
in  the  Ascent  of 
Man 


Rev. 

Minot  J. 

Savage 


A  New  World,  a 
New  God,  a  New 
Humanity 


The  New  Relig- 
ious Thinking 
deals  only  with 
Verities 


Price,  paper,  25  cents  ;  doth,  $1.00. 

The  New  Time  :   A  Plea  for  the  Union  of 
the  floral  Forces  for  Practical  Progress. 

This  new  work,  by  the  author  of  "  Civilization's  In- 
ferno," deals  with  practical  methods  for  the  reform  of 
specific  social  evils.  The  writer  does  not  bind  together  a 
mere  bundle  of  social  speculations,  that  would  seem  to 
many  to  have  only  a  remote  and  abstract  relevance  to 
everyday  life.  He  deals  with  facts  within  every  one's 
knowledge.  •*  The  New  Time "  brings  its  matter  di- 
rectly home  to  every  man's  bosom  and  business  —  follow- 
ing Bacon's  prescription. 

It  is  published  especially  to  meet  the  wants  of  those 
who  wish  to  apply  themselves  to  and  interest  their  friends 
in  the  various  branches  of  educational  and  social  effort 
comprised  in  the  platform  of  the  National  Union  for  Prac- 
tical Progress ;  but,  from  its  wide  sweep  of  all  the  factors 
in  the  social  problem,  it  will  also  serve  to  introduce  many 
readers  to  a  general  consideration  of  the  newer  social 
thinking. 

Price,  paper,  50  cents  ;  cloth,  $r.oo. 

The  Irrepressible    Conflict  between 
Two  World=Theories. 

Five  lectures  dealing  with  Christianity  and  evolutionary 
thought,  to  which  is  added  "  The  Inevitable  Surrender  of 
Orthodoxy."  By  the  famous  Unitarian  divine,  advanced 
thinker  and  author  of  "Psychics:  Facts  and  Theories." 
Mr.  Savage  stands  in  the  van  of  the  progress  of  moral, 
humane  and  rational  ideas  of  human  society  and  religion, 
which  must  be  inextricably  commingled  in  the  new  think- 
ing, and  a  stronger  word  for  moral  and  intellectual  free- 
dom has  never  been  written  than  "  The  Irrepressible 
Conflict."  We  are  now  going  through  the  greatest  revo- 
lution of  thought  the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  means 
nothing  less  than  a  new  universe,  a  new  God,  a  new  man, 
a  new  destiny. 

For  sale  by  all  newsdealers  or  sent  postpaid  by 

Arena  Publishing  Co.,  Boston,  Mass. 


From  the  press  of  the  Arena  Publishing  Company. 


Fiction :  Social,  Economic  anb  Reformatiue. 


E.  Stillman 
Doubleday 


A  story  of  the 
Struggles  of 
Honest  Industry 
under  Present 
Day   Conditions. 


Charles  S. 
Daniel 


A.  Story  of  the 
Transformation 
j)f  the  Slums 


Price,  paper,  50  cents;  cloth,  $1.25. 

JUST   PLAIN    FOLKS. 

A  novel  for  the  industrial  millions,  illustrating  two  stu- 
pendous facts :  — 

1.  The  bounty  and  goodness  of  nature. 

2.  The  misery  resulting  from  unjust  social  conditions 
which   enable  the  acquirer  of  wealth  to   degenerate   in 
luxury  and  idleness,  and  the  wealth  producer  to  slave  him- 
self to  death,  haunted  by  an  ever-present  fear  of  starva- 
tion when  not  actually  driven  to  vice  or  begging.     It  is  an 
exceedingly  interesting  book,  simply  and  affectingly  told, 
while  there  is  a  vast  deal  of  the  philosophy  of  commun- 
ism in  the  moralizing  of  Old  Bat.  All  persons  interested  in 
wholesome  fiction,  and  who  also  desire  to  understand  the 
conditions   of   honest  industry    and  society-made    vice, 
should  read  this  admirable  story. 


Price,  paper,  5^    ents  ;  cloth,  $1.25. 
AI :   A  Social  Vision. 

One  of  the  most  ingenious,  unique  and  thought-provoking 
stories  of  the  present  generation.  It  is  a  social  vision,  and  in 
many  respects  the  most  noteworthy  of  the  many  remarkable 
dreams  called  forth  by  the  general  unrest  and  intellectual  activ- 
ity of  the  present  generation.  But  unlike  most  social  dreams 
appearing  since  the  famous  "  Utopia  "  of  Sir  Thomas  More, 
this  book  has  distinctive  qualities  which  will  commend  it  to 
many  readers  who  take,  as  yet,  little  interest  in  the  vital  social 
problems  of  the  hour.  A  quiet  humor  pervades  the  whole  vol- 
ume which  is  most  delightful. 

The  brotherhood  of  man  and  various  sociological  and  philan- 
thropic ideas,  such  as  the  establishment  of  a  college  settlement 
and  the  social  regeneration  of  Old  Philadelphia,  are  a  few  of 
the  topics  discussed  in  "  Ai,"  a  novel  by  Charles  Daniel,  whc 
calls  it  "  A  Social  Vision."  It  is  alternately  grave  and  gay;  ark 
the  intellectual  freshness  reminds  one  constantly  of  Edward 
Everett  Hale's  stories,  with  which  "  Ai "  has  much  in  common. 
This  is  a  clever  book,  and,  what  is  much  more  important,  one 
whose  influence  is  for  good.  —  Public  Ledger. 


From  the  press  of  the  Arena  Publishing  Company. 


A  Sequel  to  "Looking  Bachuiarb." 


Rabbi 
Solomon 
Schindler 


Civilization 
under  National- 
ism in  the 
Twenty-Second 
Century 


YOUNG  WEST. 


Price,  cloth,  $1.25  ;  paper,  50  cents. 


The  author  of  "  Looking  Backward"  and  others  did  a 
good  work  in  introducing  to  the  general  reader  many  ideas 
which  had  been  discussed  for  a  long  time  by  the  best 
scientific  writers  of  our  day,  but  which  were  and  are  un- 
fortunately removed  from  popular  sympathy  through  the 
strictly  scientific  character  of  the  literary  vehicles  in  which 
they  appeared.  But  the  author  of  "  Looking  Backward," 
probably  on  account  of  the  limited  compass  of  his  book, 
has  not  given  in  detail  a  description  of  all  the  social  con- 
ditions of  the  brighter  future  which  is  to  witness  the  tri- 
umph of  altruism.  He  has  merely  whetted  the  appetite  of 
the  reader,  but  he  has  not  satified  his  hunger.  •«  Young 
West"  (the  son  of  Julian  West)  will  indirectly  answer  all 
these  questions.  Describing  his  own  eventful  career  from 
his  first  awakening  to  consciousness  to  his  age  of  three- 
score and  ten,  the  hero  of  the  book  will  picture  life  in  its 
various  phases,  as  it  will  be  acted  out  by  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States  of  America  in  the  twenty-second  century. 

The  book  is  intended  primarily  to  answer  the  many 
questions  which  are  asked  about  the  practical  workings  of 
nationalism  and  socialism. 


A  Stirring  Story  of  the  TJIar. 


Helen  H. 
Gardener 


Price,  cloth,  $1.25  ;  paper,  50  cents. 
AN  UNOFFICIAL  PATRIOT. 

This  is  a  story  of  the  Civil  War,  but  it  is  the  first  story 
of  its  kind  that  has  appeared  in  our  literature.  It  deals 
with  a  phase  of  the  war  entirely  new  in  fiction.  It  is  a 
departure  from  all  Helen  Gardener's  previous  stories,  and 
is  perhaps  the  strongest  piece  of  work  she  has  produced. 
The  Boston  Home  Journal  says :  "Is  in  many  ways  the 
most  remarkable  historical  novel  of  the  Civil  War  which 
has  yet  appeared.  The  story  is  filled  with  strong  dramatic 
incidents,  and  there  is  a  bit  of  charming  romance.  Mrs. 
Gardener  has  produced  a  book  that  will  take  very  high 
rank  in  the  historical  literature  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  ; 
for  although  presented  in  the  form  of  a  novel,  its  historical 
value  cannot  be  questioned." 

For  sale  by  all  newsdealers,  or  sent  postpaid  by 

Arena  Publishing  Co.,  Boston,  Mass. 


From  the  press  of  the  Arena  Publishing  Company. 


Che  Latest  Social  Uision. 


Byron  A. 
Brooks 


Richmond,  Va. 
Star 

Chicago  Times 

Review  of 
Reviews 


Lyman   Abbott's 
Paper,  The 
Outlook 


Nashville,  Tenn. 
Banner 


Price,  paper,  50  cents ;  cloth,  $1.25. 
EARTH    REVISITED. 

The  New  Utopia,  "  Earth  Revisited,"  is  the  latest  social 
vision,  and  in  many  respects  the  most  charming  work 
of  this  character  which  has  ever  appeared.  In  it  we  see 
the  people,  the  state  and  the  church  under  true  civilization, 
and  the  new  psychology  is  introduced  in  such  a  manned 
as  to  interest  students  of  psychical  research. 

Here  are  a  few  press  opinions  :  — 

"  As  a  story,  it  is  very  interesting." 

"  Worthy  of  consideration  for  its  study  of  the  social  and  other 
questions  involved." 

"  The  story  is  written  in  an  autobiographical  form  and  pic- 
tures the  social,  industrial,  religious  and  educational  America  of 
1992.  As  a  work  of  fiction  the  volume  embodies  in  a  fanciful 
way  a  view  expressed  in  the  closing  words :  '  To  live  is  to  love 
and  to  labor.  There  is  no  death.'  The  style  is  clear  and  direct." 

"  Mr.  Brooks  is  an  earnest  man.  He  has  written  a  religio- 
philosophical  novel  of  life  in  the  coming  century.  The  hero  of 
this  story  has  lived  the  life  of  the  average  man  and  at  length, 
when  he  finds  himself  dying,  he  wishes  that  he  might  have  a 
chance  to  live  his  life  over.  The  wish  is  granted  and  he  is  born 
again  on  the  earth  a  century  later.  Social  and  scientific  and 
religious  evolution  have  in  a  hundred  years  contrived  to  make  an 
almost  irrecognizable  world  of  it.  Human  nature  is  changed  ; 
altruism  is  fully  realized;  worship  has  become  service  of  man; 
the  struggle  for  wealth  and  social  rank  has  ended.  Mr.  Brooks' 
book  is  worth  reading  by  all  sincere  people,  and  in  particular 
by  those  interested  in  Christian  socialism  and  applied  Christian- 
ity." 

"  If  you  should  happen  to  pick  up  Byron  A.  Brooks'  '  Earth 
Revisited '  and  read  the  first  chapter,  the  chances  are  that  you 
would  follow  the  story  on  to  the  end,  even  if  you  had  other 
things  on  hand  spoiling  for  your  attention.  Summed  up, 
'  Earth  Revisited '  is  a  wild  though  delightful  story,  short 
enough  to  be  filled  from  end  to  end  with  throbbing  interest  and 
long  enough  to  fully  round  off  the  things  that  are  introduced." 


For  sale  by  all  newsdealers,  or  sent  postpaid  by 

Arena  Publishing  Co.,  Boston,  Mass. 


From  the  press  of  the  Arena  Publishing  Company. 


A  Bibelot  for  Booh-Louers. 


Walter 
Blackburn 

Harte 


"  Motley's  the 
only  wear." 


Price  in  handsome  cloth,  $1.25 

MEDITATIONS    IN    MOTLEY:    A    Bundle    of 
Papers  Imbued  with  the  Sobriety  of  Midnight. 

This  is  a  bundle  of  papers  written  in  a  vein  of  delightful 
humor,  and  filled  with  those  sober  and  fantastic  specula- 
tions that  appeal  to  all  those  lovers  of  literature  who  have 
discovered  among  the  older  humorists  some  of  the  most 
agreeable  philosophers  of  their  time. 

"  Meditations  in  Motley"  is  a  book  for  the  fireside  or 
outdoors ;  for  gray  days  or  sunshine ;  for  solitude  or 
society.  It  will  take  its  place  among  those  books  handy 
at  one's  elbow  which  one  instinctively  reaches  for  as  one 
sinks  into  a  cosy  armchair  in  a  snug  corner  and  abandons 
one's  self  to  the  seductions  of  meditation  and  firelight  — 
and  perhaps  a  pipe  of  tobacco. 

The  papers  are  on  the  most  various  topics,  and  throw 
light  on  literature  and  social  questions  without  touching 
directly  the  essay  in  criticism  or  sociology.  "  Meditations 
in  Motley  "  is  a  book  that  tumbles  out  of  every  category. 
It  is  a  book  of  its  own  kind  —  as  all  who  know  the  writer's 
work  can  anticipate.  The  style  of  the  essays  reminds  the 
reader  occasionally  of  the  older  English  humorists,  but 
there  is  added  a  suggestion  of  French  sparkle  and  wit  and 
vivacity  and  lightness  of  touch. 


Che  History  of  a  iBreat  Social  Experiment. 


Dr.  John  T. 
Codman 


The  History  of  a 
Great  Social  and 
Intellectual 
Awakening 


Price  in  handsome  cloth,  $2.00. 

BROOK   FARM.     Memoirs,  Historic  and  Per- 
sonal. 

A  complete  history  of  the  famous  Brook  Farm  experi- 
ment has  been  one  of  those  books  which  demanded  writ- 
ing to  complete  the  most  interesting  era  of  American 
literature  and  social  thought,  and  at  last  we  have  a  volume 
that  covers  the  whole  ground  adequately  —  Dr.  John 
Thomas  Codman's  "  Brook  Farm  :  Memoirs,  Historic  and 
Personal."  Dr.  Codman  is  one  of  the  few  surviving 
members  of  the  Brook  Farm  community,  and  his  work 
has,  therefore,  the  special  value  of  intimate  personal 
knowledge  of  the  inner  workings  of  the  scheme  and  of  the 
character  and  personalities  of  the  group  of  famous  men 
who  were  interested  in  it.  The  book  will  have  an  im- 
mediate claim  upon  the  interest  of  all  students  of  American, 
literature,  and  of  social  thought  everywhere. 

For  sale  by  all  newsdealer  s<  or  sent  postpaid  by 

Arena  Publishing  Co.,  Boston,  Mass. 


YB  06840 


& 

•xzMl*. 


887319 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


1X3*3 


